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A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 




WAINWRIGHT MEERILL 



A COLLEGE MAN 
IN KHAKI 

LETTERS OF AN AMERICAN IN THE BRITISH ARTILLERY 



BY 

WAINWRIGHT MERRILL 

DARTMOUTH, EX-'19; HARVARD, '19 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

CHARLES M. STEARNS 

REGENT OF HARVARD tTNIVEHSITT, 1905-10 
mSTRUCTOR AT DARTMOUTH COLX.EOE, 1914-18 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW >lHJr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



^''a"" 



Copyright, 1918, 
By George H. Doran Company 



OCT 



Printed pi the United States of America 

/ • 

©CI.A508273 



WIATER, AVE ATQUE VALE 



PREFATORY NOTE 

These letters tell their own story. 

Wainwright Merrill was one of those young 
enthusiasts for the cause of the Allies who felt, 
long before the United States took her place in 
the War, that he at least must do his full share. 
In the spring of 1916 as a freshman at Dart- 
mouth, his father's college, he was an active 
member of the volunteer training battalion; in 
the summer of 1916 he was at Plattsburg for 
two camps; in the autumn, having transferred 
to Harvard to enter the sophomore class, he 
was a member of the H.O.T.C. Then in No- 
vember, when only eighteen, he left his home 
in Cambridge to volunteer, under the name of 
Arthur A. Stanley, as a gunner in the Cana- 
dian Field Artillery. He took this step be- 
cause he was a minor, and knew he could not 
well get his father's consent. These letters give 
an account of his experiences while he was in 
training in England, and while he was actually 
at the front in Flanders. 

His letters to me from May, 1917, until his 
death at Ypres form a series complete in them- 
selves. I have added others to his father, his 
brother, and his friends, that show still fur- 
ther his engaging personality, his loyalty to 

vii 



viii PREFATORY NOTE 

the cause he had made his, his intense love of 
England and all things English, and his inter- 
est in the details of his life of training and — 
later — of actual warfare. 

He was the son of Samuel Merrill of Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts. His mother died when 
Wainwright was ten years old. He was bom 
May 26, 1898; he was killed, while at the front, 
on November 6, 1917. 

C. M. S. 
Cambridge, Mass. 

August 26, 1918 

Note. — The text of the letters has been left 
virtually as it came from his pen or pencil. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter I: The Call to Akms paob 

Wainwright Merrill Becomes "Arthur A. Stanley" 
In the England He Has Dreamed Of — Stone- 
Street — American Troops on British Soil — 
Kipling's "A Diversity of Creatures" — Folke- 
stone — The Huns in the Air — "The Pater 
Has Approved" — The British Regiments — 
Watling-Street and the Pilgrims' Way — Amer- 
ica Will Carry On 1^ 

Chapteb II: From Kentish Training Camps 

Otterpool — The Roman Roads — An Old School- 
house Transformed — Lympne Castle — Shorn- 
cliffe — Transferred to the Heavy Artillery — 
"Gossip of Mayfair and the Strand" — Hythe 
— England After Three Years of War . . 42 

Chapter HI: At Horsham Siege School 

From Shorncliffe to Roffey Camp in Sussex — Hor- 
sham Routine — A Walk to Broadbridge — To 
Cuckfield by Bicycle— "Deah Old Blighty" . 65 

Chapter IV: In Kipling's Country 

Christ's Hospital — The Head — A Deputy-Grecian 
— The "Rose and Crown" at Burwash — Batc- 
man's — In S. Hemsley's Tap-room — An Inn- 
keeper's Reminiscences of the Kiplings — On 
Pook's Hill— "Oak and Ash and Thorn"— To 
Battle and Hastings ..... 8^S 



3: CONTENTS 

PAGH 

Chapter V: Working with the Big Guns 
Life at Roffey Camp — Bairnsfather's Cartoons — 
On Fatigues — Democracy as a Theory — The 
British Artillery— The Cavalry — The Infan- 
try — Gun Drill and Routine — "Cheero!" — 
The "Y" 101 

Chapter VI: At "Tin Town," Ltdd 

Doing Sentry Go — Camp Ditties — Cooden Camp 
— Pevensey — Application for a Commission — 
The Y. M. C. A.— Pay— Flag Worship— At 
the Target Range — Camp Fare — An Air Raid 
on Dover ....... 126 

Chapter VII: Through London to Codford 

A Rest-Camp in Wiltshire — Glimpses of London: 
Charing Cross, the Strand, Trafalgar Square 
— -Types in Camp — A Walk to Stonehenge — 
America's Part in the War : "Don't Drivel and 
Sentimentalise" . . . . . .151 

Chapter VIII: Oxford in War Time 

A Morning at Stratford — The Harvard Housfr — 
The Shakespeare Tercentenary Programme of 
the Celebration at Ruhleben — ^An Afternoon at 
Oxford — Balliol's Five Sheets of Names in 
the Lodge Entry: FRATER, AVE ATQUE 
VALE 162 

Chapter IX: London During an Air Raid 

The Eagle Hut — Belgravia; Rotten Row; Mayfair 
— Over London Bridge to Southwark — Under 
Shrapnel in Temple Gardens — ^A Night of 
Experience . . . . . . .170 

Chapter X: On Salisbury Plain 

In the "Clink" — Hopes for Recommendation for a 
Commission — Gas Masks — Galsworthy's ','^e- 



CONTENTS xi 

PAQB 

yond" — Reminiscences of Oxford — ^The Host 
at "Ye Chesliire Cheese" — Ingoldsby — Leav- 
ing for France — Ye Ballade of ye Clinke . 178 

Chapter XI: To France and Flanders 

Folkestone Pier — Landing at Boulogne — The 
Camp on the Hilltop — Smoke Gossip of the 
British Army— The Quai— At the Y.M.C.A. 
by the Priesterstraat : An English Padre's 
Talk on America — Aeroplanes in Formation — 
Going Up to the Line . . . . .196 

Chapter XII: At the Front 

"Pleasantly Domiciled in a Brick-walled Passage" 
— A Battery Position — On the Mud-covered 
Highway — The Ruins at Ypres — ^Work of the 
Heavy Guns — The Wine-cellar — The Infantrj^ 
on the Ypres Front — English Democracy — A 
Meeting in London with Two College Men — 
"Till Later" gl5 



ABBREVIATIONS 

A.S.C. Army Service Corps. 

B.E.F. British Expeditionary Force. 

C.B. Confined to Barracks. 

C. of E. Church of England. 

C.F.A. Canadian Field Artillery. 

C.G.A. Canadian Garrison Artillery. 

D.C.M.'d District Court Martialled. 

D.S.O. Distinguished Service Order. 

F.A. Field Artillery. 
F.P. No. 2 Field Punishment No. 2. 

Gnr. Gunner. 

G.O.C. General Officer Commanding. 

H.E. High Explosive. 

H.M. His Majesty. 

H.O.T.C. Harvard Officers' Traming Corps. 

L.D. Light Duty. 

M.O. Medical Officer. 
M.P. Member of Parhament. 

N.C.O. Non-Commissioned Officer. 
O.C. Officer Commanding. 

O.T.C. Officers' Training Corps. 
P.H. Protective Helmet 

P.T. Physical Training; "Physical Tor- 

ture." 
R.A. Royal Artillery. 

R.A.M.C. Royal Army Medical Corps. 



ABBREVIATIONS 

R.E. Royal Engineers. 

R.F.A. Royal Field Artillery. 

R.F.C. Royal Flying Corps. 

R.G.A. Royal Garrison Artillery. 

R.H.A. Royal Heavy Artillery. 

R.K. Rudyard Kipling. 

R.N. Royal Navy. 

R.O.T.C. Reserve Officers' Training Corps. 

R.S.A. Royal Siege Artillery. 

S.M. Sergeant-Major. 

T.M.B. Trench Mortar Battery. 

U.S.R. United States Reserve. 

V.A.D. Voluntary Aid Detachment. 

V.C. Victoria Cross. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

From Photographs: 

Wainweight Merrill (1915) .... Frontispiece "' 

PAGE 

Wainwright Merrill (in uniform of Canadian 

Field Artillery) 44 

Ramming Home a Shell 120 '^ 

Canadian Heavy Artillery in Action . . 216 

Cloth Hall, Ypres, after Bombardment . . 220 

From Sketches in the Letters: 

The Roffey Milestone 68 

"Vintm Bonum— M. T. Crassus" .... 72 

A Portuguese Salute 80 

A BuRWASH Fire Screen 88 

BuRWASH AND ViciNiTY (map) 90 

Gun Crew and Gun (plan) 117 

A"Gyn" 119 

Pevensey Castle (plan) 134 

From Post Cards: 

The Quadrangle, Christ's Hospital ... 85 

A Bairnsfather Cartoon ...... 107 - 

Pevensey Castle 133 ^ 

Barracks at Folkestone 196 

XV 



A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 



CHAPTER I 

THE CALL TO ARMS 

Wainwright Merrill Becomes "Arthur A. Stanley" — In 
the England He Has Dreamed Of — Stone-Street — 
American Troops on British Soil — Kipling's "A 
Diversity of Creatures" — Folkestone — The Huns in 
the Air — "The Pater Has Approved" — The British 
Regiments — Watling-Street and the Pilgrims' Way 
— ^America Will Carry On 

2d Reserve Battery, C.F.A, 
Risboro Barracks 
Shorncliffe Camp, Kent 
May 20, 1917 

Dear Mr. Stearns: 

It is a sometime acquaintance and, in some 
measure, student of yours, that is writing to 
you now, my dear sir, though you may well 
have forgotten him. The mere matter of a 
name matters little — I have a poor memory 
for names, but a good one for faces — and this 
one may appear strange to you. Mutati tern- 
pores, mutata nominaJ 

19 



20 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Do you remember a rather long, thin youth, 
who attended Dartmouth in 1915-16 as a pea- 
green Freshman ; who meditated the muse un- 
der your friend Mr. Rudd in that marvel of 
the pedagogical art, English I and II (was 
it not? for I almost wrote English "A," think- 
ing of Johnny H!) ; who could see practi- 
cally nothing else in the late Victorian Age 
but the one and only Rudyard; who inhabited 
'No. 3 South Mass. ; had an impediment in his 
speech ; and left Hanover for a different school 
called Harvard ? You may remember this per- 
son now. His name is Arthur A. Stanley, 
No. 343939, Canadian Field Artillery, on ac- 
tive service. For reasons it is perhaps not 
worth while to enter upon, he left Cambridge 
and took His Majesty's Service as a Gunner, 
which corresponds, in the corps whose motto is 
ZJhique, to "Thomas Atkins, Private of the 
Ijine." And, in passing, there is nothing too 
^ood for the Line — ^hats off to them. 

For these reasons that are not easy to write 
I find myself in this Garden of Kent — ^in the 
springtime, grace a Dieu. It is a great thing 
for the Native-Born to see the Homeland so, 
this England that he has always read of, 
dreamed of, and desired for his own. That de- 
sire is bred in one as part of his make-up — 



THE CALL TO ARMS 21 

stronger than friends or blood-tie, stronger 
than the man himself — or the boy — c'est tout 
egal. You know these lines — 

"We read of the English skylark 
And spring in the EngHsh lanes" — ^ 

*'They change their skies above them 
But not their hearts that roam; 
And we learned from our wistful mothers 
To call old England— Home."— 

But what is the use of trying to express it; you 
know it better than I can write.* The giddy 
words are not pat — so, cui bono? 

I have seen a Roman castra of Augustus' 
day, with a Norman church and Henry IV 
castle above it, at the edge of the South Down 
here near Hythe (which is called "The Cliff" 
to this day, showing that once Romney Marsh 
was not, and the sea came in to the run of the 
Downs). The camp is the Portus Lemanis 
of Roman times, and is on the site of a Cinque 
Port of the Middle Ages — all of which has 
passed on. Beyond the castle stretches the 
green, hedged level of Romney Marsh, with 

* Wainwright's fondness for England may perhaps be ac- 
counted for, in a measure, by the fact that his father's mother 
was born in England and brought up there. She died, how- 
ever, before Wainwright's birth. 



22 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

its crazily winding roads, scattered old stone 
houses and straight ditches, out to the sea- 
wall and Dymchurch and Komney, to Dunge- 
ness, Brenzett, and Rye — as I have seen it in 
the red of the dusk, with the hazy Channel be- 
yond, and the busy mine-trawlers. 

From the Castle runs a straight ancient 
highway, straight over the eastern Weald and 
the chalk hills to Canterbury and Thomas 
Becket — Stone- Street, Via Strata, "The 
Street" — a flinty white road, dotted here and 
there with old farms and inns (the "George" 
at Elmsted has had a line of publicans — jovial 
hosts to judge by the present example — since 
"sweet Jack's" and Harry's time) ; and I have 
pilgrimaged on this old road — in khaki instead 
of bronze hoop -harness or doublet or linked 
chain, to be sure — ^in April even as: 

"Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote 
The droghte of Marche hath perced to 
the roote ..." 

as scrivening Dan wrote, to joy of all mankind. 
And I have walked out over the green Marsh 
to "Dymchurch-under-the-Wall," stopping for 
ginger wine and a pint or two at the "Botolph's 
Bridge" and the "Shepherd and Crook" in 
Barmarsh, and stood on the sloping beach 



THE CALL TO ARMS 23 

where the Widow Whitgift's two sons em- 
barked the Pharisees out of Old England — 
the one son blind and the other dumb, — as we 
are told in "Puck." And so on. And, to alter 
the old saw slightly, ''veni, vidi, victus sumr 
Which is but natural, I think. 

America has entered, and been gladly re- 
ceived here. The first troops to land on Brit- 
ish soil were a Harvard medical unit, and 
others will follow on. Certain friends of mine 
will come with them, I hope. It is well. 

Kipling has written and published a new 
book a few weeks ago: "A Diversity of Crea- 
tures." They are reprints from various maga- 
zines, along with new matter and new poems 
(fine ones), making a volume of short stories 
with the old touch all there. There are two 
more excellent Stalky stories, one of the days 
at Westward Ho! and the other presenting 
Lt.-Col. "Stalky" Cockran, Indian Artillery, 
carrying on under the old principles — a sort 
of prelude to the present War. All the others 
are in it: Beetle, McTurk, etc. It resembles 
"Slaves of the Lamp : Part II," the final story 
of "Stalky & Co." There is a real war poem 
after it. Old Hobden is again touched on, to 
his benefit, in a story, ending in a capital long 
poem, on the line of Hobdens, from Diocletian 



34 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

on. I would like to talk over the book with 
you — there is too much in it to mention. 

Dartmouth Commencement will be close, 
probably, when you get this {if you do) . I can 
see the elms about the campus, and the red of 
the new buildings, and the pines by the Tower 
— the Vermont Hills — Main Street — tout ga: 
and I would like to be there, for a season, 
again. These things may not be, however. I 
would give much to stand by University or 
Sever and look over at Holworthy, Hollis, and 
the square clock tower of "Mem" over the way 
— but again, I cannot. I have my path to run 
elsewhere just now; but, an I may, I shall see 
this dear land again, and, sometime, return. 

My best wishes and regards to Mr. Rudd 
(and tell him I always remember his "Tues- 
day afternoons"), and those who knew me in 
Hanover, and much thanks to yourself — for 
showing me many things in literature that I 
did not know, and my debt to you as regards 
Kipling, which is indeed great. I think you 
know, too, how 

"England hath taken me." 

I would be very glad to hear from you, and 
the address below will always find me, whether 
here or "out West" in the "Right of the Line," 



THE CALL TO ARMS 25 

that the Royal Artillery is holding. It's a 
good Service. 

You will forgive the faults in this letter — 
take instead the spirit, which I hope is good. 
And believe me, ever your friend, 

Arthue a. Stanley, Gnr. No. 343939, 
2d Reserve Battery, C.F.A., 
Risboro Barracks, ShornclifFe, Kent, 
c/o Army P.O., London. 

P. S. : — To add to it all, I expect my leave 
soon — and then for Blighty, which is London, 
— and a certain part of Sussex. And if it 
should be finis in a few months — I shall have 
seen — England. A. A. S. 

For Wainwright the greatest factor at this 
period shines out in his sentence, "The Pater — 
has approved." More than once in letters to 
two college chums he lamented the fact that 
he had to keep up his incognito. After the 
United States entered the war, he felt the time 
had come to let all his friends know where he 
was. Because of the seriousness of the step 
he had taken and the inevitable loneliness that 
step involved, he doubly appreciated every sign 
of approval and affection. 

Early in December he had written from 
Kingston, Ontario: "I took the oath the 18th 



26 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

[November, 1916]. ... I claim to the 'Old 
Country* myself, as you know — Hampstead, 
London, N. My age is 21. The name, and 
so forth, was necessary." 

Further on he wrote, "It is too bad that my 
friends cannot hear anything of it, but it is 
better so, in any case. I should not wish any 
but the few closest to know about it. Some 
might misunderstand my reasons — and all that. 
In some things one has got to go almost alone. 

"It surely hurt, coming away from where 
you are — but I don't think of the hurts in it, 
for there are comforts, too, and it does no good 
to brood over it. It's done, and I believe it is 
right." 

From what he wrote a month later to the 
same friend, Edward Hubbard, we again get 
far beneath the surface : "Write when you can, 
Ed ; I need cheering-up, sometimes, very much. 
'Jordan is a hard road,' and this is surely a 
hard road, too. But toujours gai!" 

Churchyard, SS. Mary and Eansrvythe 
Folkestone, Kent 
July 1, 1917 

Deae Mr. Steaens: 

I was so gratified to see the postmark "Han- 
over," and then to find that you were so kind, 



THE CALL TO ARMS 27 

out of your busy seasons, to reply on the very 
day of receiving my letter, that I can do no 
better than do likewise — ^which I assuredly 
would have done anyway, if it were humanly 
possible. (Please forgive at the start these 
blottings-out, and especially this terrible pa- 
per. I can only say what the tradesman does 
when he sells you avant-guerre ninepenny mut- 
ton for one and eleven: "It's the war!" 
Prices, indeed, are "bloody orful," as you hear 
it in the East; but we have hopes of Lord 
Rhondda, the new Food Controller.) 

This is a very beautiful old church, with a 
pleasant God's-acre surrounding it, the grey 
and ancient stones being interspersed and lined 
with geraniums, bluebells, and garden-flowers. 
The edifice and its green setting you encounter 
suddenly as you walk up the hill-slope, and feel 
the Channel wind at the street-corners. About 
fifty yards back of this spot the cliff promenade 
winds round the Parade, at the easterly end 
of Folkestone Leas, with its towering blocks 
of hotels and boarding establishments. But 
you see little else than khaki, in the male line, 
on the promenade now — and many of the 
women, of whom there seems no end, are in 
V. A. D. brown and nursing blue. Below is 
the Undercliff , and you look off eastward over 



28 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

the Pier and shipping quarter quite to Cap 
Gris-Nez and Boulogne to-day, as it's fine 
weather, and there is little Channel mist. 

Folkestone, with the white cliffs and green 
upland at the north, is a pretty town. Oif 
here, in '78, 1 think, the Preussen rammed the 
Grosser Kurfurst in a German naval review. 
A little over a month ago — ^but you haven't 
heard it all yet. The Prussian government 
sent special thanks to the fishing people and 
citizens of Folkestone who aided the survivors 
to safety. The German sailors were as well 
treated by the citizens as their own brothers 
would have been. At the end of last April, at 
the orders of Der Allerhochster, the Huns 
came — ^in the air — twenty of them, and left 
ruin and death. I saw things that night that 
it is not good for any man to see — torn women 
with child, and mangled children crying, cry- 
ing — and I drilled the next day beside a chap 
whose tunic and breeches were all bedrabbled 
and stiff from their blood. He had been help- 
ing in the wreckage. And British men — some 
of them — still talk of an early peace, and de- 
cry reprisals. God, in view of the beastliness 
of savages ! There were no military objectives 
in Folkestone. I rather hope the censor passes 
this. 



THE CALL TO ARMS 2^ 

Great news has come over from "your 
United States" for me in the past week. I have 
heard — grace a Dieu — from you, from two col- 
lege chaps de mes amis at Cambridge, word of 
my brother, and from — ^the Pater. My Har- 
vard chums inform me that they are in the 
Naval Reserve and Hospital Naval something- 
or-other, that a third is in the Harvard O.T.C., 
that nearly all my acquaintances and friends 
there have joined. My brother, I learn, is 
cadetting at Plattsburg — Cavalry, I fancy, for 
he was in the Massachusetts Militia. Another, 
from Dartmouth — P. L. Gould, '17, of South 
Mass. (transferred from a Maine college) — 
writes from Plattsburg also, where he is foot- 
slogging, and he was able to tell me much of 
the individual men at Hanover, and what they 
were, and were not, doing. He gets his de- 
gree. 

The Pater — ^has approved. For various rea- 
sons I am very, very glad: because, when I 
entered this thing, I took counsel with, and 
shook hands with, but one at leaving — ^the 
H.O.T.C. chap. Now I find that I have many 
other good friends, more than I ever thought. 
And — I'm glad indeed. For our friends are 
the best and only worth-while thing in this 



so A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

giddy old show called Life — are they not, my 
friend? 

Dartmouth is certainly doing her bit, and it 
is a real bit, beyond doubt. Are the present 
volunteers merely training for proceeding 
overseas as a unit, or is the plan one for teach- 
ing them the subalterns' side of it, for gazet- 
ting to later Regular regiments? "Regiment" 
is hard to say now, for the regiment is being 
lost sight of in the British Army — the whole 
thing is the battalion. Present Imperial (the 
word used for the Regular Army here) regi- 
ments on peace basis have two battalions each, 
formed from the old Line regiments, the 1st 
to 110th Foot. The Regiment is named by 
some shire appellation, and the two old bat- 
talions have become the same in tradition — 
though they may have had entirely different 
records : thus the Argyll and Sutherland High- 
landers are the old 91st and 93d Foot — ^but 
since the war the reserve battalions of militia 
have gone in under the old name, and ten or 
so "Service" battalions of Kitchener's Army 
formed. That is the present cadre-system in 
the British forces. The battalion numbers 
about 1100 men, I believe, in companies of ap- 
proximately 200 each — four platoons of 50 
each, led by four one-star "subs." The Cana- 



THE CALL TO ARMS 31 

dian Infantry, I believe, under Currie's lead 
(the new army corps commander in France), 
have developed especially the platoon as a 
self-contained and self-sufficient unit for the 
trenches. 

But what am I writing this for, when it is 
quite out of my line, and when you have had 
Captain Keene to elucidate to you? The Brit- 
ish "Inf antree" is doing wonderful work in this 
business, and you Yankees (?) will have to 
learn from it, I am convinced. They are doing 
the job, and doing it well. Every one in the 
Army, from the Brigadier G.O.C. to the gun- 
ner of the "Ubique" corps, takes off his hat 
to the Infantry — "Thomas Atkins, Private of 
the Line," to whom R. K., in his wisdom, dedi- 
cated his soldier-poems. 

The Army shares your captain's ideas on the 
A.S.C.— "Safety First," and "Ally Sloper's 
Cavalry," they are called; and to top it off, 
their blessed swank exceeds that of the Bom- 
bardier of R.F.A., which is "going some !" For 
the R.F.C. (Royal Flying Corps), in spite of 
what you may hear, does not swank more than 
the R.F.A. (By the way, I thought of trans- 
fer, and a one-star affair, in the R.F.C, but 
on later thoughts my nerves were called in 
doubt.) But, you see, the Royal Artillery is 



S2 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

the "Right of the Line," and they have a bit 
of a record. We are not Imperial, but our 
record is goodish in Flanders, and we wear the 
R.A. crest, the proudest crest in the British 
Army, barring, perhaps, only the Coldstreams' 
and Grenadiers'. You may remember 
"Ubique" in R. K.'s South African songs? 
Well — ^really, it's pretty nearly true! 

I shall never forget your readings, nor do 
I think will most of the rest who have heard 
you: for having once heard, they would be 
guilty of the grossest neglect of opportunity 
well possible, if they came not again and again, 
ad infimt. If you have the chance, at Cam- 
bridge this summer, I'd like ever-so-much for 
you to look up Sydney C. Stanley of the 
H.O.T.C., if you can find him. I have spoken 
of him before. He visited Hanover once when 
I was there, and liked it greatly, but he is for 
H., beyond recall. Either choice would be 
"top hole," as our deah little flappers (bless 
their little hearts!) express it. For, though I 
have taken H. as my alma mater, I still re- 
member very warmly the year when I was in 
Hanover, and always will. "There we met 
with famous men" — and, of course, we did also 
in Cambridge. Delightful old Barrett Wen- 
dell has gone, which is a tremendous pity. But 



THE CALL TO ARMS 33 

Dean Briggs stays, and gruff old Kittredge 
— a master, that — the ironical butt of the play- 
ful undergrad ! — I can see his fierce grey beard 
and grey eye, and the green bag, and the cane 
tapping the platform: all that for a scant two 
months I knew, but that is stamped indelibly 
in me. God grant that I see it again some 
day — ''apres la guerre finieT Greet all of 
Cambridge for me. You know the Botanical 
Gardens, and the hill with the trees, north of 
Linn^an Street? That is my home. 

I always liked a horse. I rode for four 
months in Canada, and delighted therein. But 
now our battery of Reserve Artillery here has 
been made Siege Guns: 4.5's and 60-pounders 
— "Heavies" only, 6-inch, 8-inch and 9.2's. I 
am on the 8-inch: 6th Siege Battery, C.G.A. 
So, since we are drawn by tractors, we do not 
ride; and fai me mis les eperons. If I stayed 
in the C.F.A. it would be a bit of a disgrace 
to remove my spurs; for the Field Artillery- 
man is only obliged to remove them when, a 
prisoner, he is "up for Office" before the O.C. 
We shall probably move to Horsham, north 
Sussex, for training: Ave! the Sussex Weald 
— only twenty miles to Brightling (Book's 
Hill!) and Burwash of R. K.; over the hill 



S4 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Battle, Hastings, and Pevensey. Nothing 
more need be said, I think. 

I walked, one day, up the cliffs at Caesar's 
Camp (do you remember "aquillam inferimus 
hostihus" — the centurion landing, the camp 
made — from Book IV, I think, of ''De Bello 
GaUico?" it was here — this the camp), and 
"swinging" to the north on Swingfield Minnis, 
(minnis, Kentish, "moor road," I think), 
through Hawkinge ("The White Hart" had 
excellent ginger wine) and Denton. Here I 
had a lift in an R.A.M.C. 'bus for four miles 
— "Chequers" Inn — to Broame Park, Earl K, 
of K.'s estate, and — ^Watling- Street! There 
it lay, broad and straight, green-hedged and 
windy, north and south along Barham Downs. 

Well, north it was for me (Roman tumtdi 
here) on the King's Highway to Bridge Vil- 
lage. Here I stopped at the "Red Fox" for 
a bite — and excellent Kentish ale, though Gov- 
ernment control has done its best to "teeto- 
talise" it — and so into Canterbury at six of the 
evening, by the Ridingate, where met Stone- 
Street from Lympne, Watling-Street from 
Portus Dubris (Dover), and the Pilgrims' 
Road to Rutubise (Sandwich). Then right 
turn along the Cattle Market (David re- 
marked how Betsey Trotwood on market day 



THE CALL TO ARMS 35 

wound in and out among the vehicles so well) 
into High Street. North again, past the newer 
shops and inns to St. Margaret Street, Mer- 
cery Lane (the "Chequers" Inn, of Chaucer) 
with the view of Christ-Church Gate and the 
Cathedral towers, grey and massive, above it, 
with the rooks wheeling in the yellow sunlight. 
But I had other ends, and carried on. There 
were the Crutched Friars, the Benedictine 
Hostel, Guildhall, the Stour, and the weavers' 
houses; the Church of the Holy Cross and 
Westgate towers square in the road; under the 
arch and past the "Falstaff" Inn, to the left 
turning the London Road. 

I was a bit tired now, but ahead was the 
thing I sought. To the left there turns off a 
lane, going straight west, while Watling- Street 
bends north. A half-mile down this lane it 
narrows to a six-foot track, for the sides are 
grass-grown and the hedges encroach on the 
right-of-way: this is the Pilgrims' Way, that 
runs along the Downs by Guildford and 
Reigate to Winchester; thence it ran on over 
Salisbury Plain to St. Michael's Mount, Pen- 
zance. 

This old road always fascinated me, some- 
how. Books and books have been written of 
it — and I actually trod it myself, which I never 



S6 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

had thought to do. There was a fine evening 
view into the Stour Valley. Back I came 
through Westgate, even as Dan Scrivener's 
Pilgrims of the better days, and King Henry 
walking barefoot to Becket's shrine. 

Another time I bicycled west through 
Hythe, and out on to Romney Marsh, through 
Dymchurch, New Romney, and Old Romney, 
by the Channel road under the sea-wall. The 
sleepy old Marsh was never more beautiful. 
You go to Brenzett from Old Romney: 

"Oh Romnej level and Brenzett reeds, 
I reckon you know what my mind needs !" 

Farmers pass you on the road — a fine mac- 
adam road it is — and you meet them in the 
pubs. They picture Hobden and his ilk for 
you. And the ale is nectar to a dusty throat. 
Thence I carried on westerly through Brook- 
lands hamlet, with the old church tower, black 
with age, standing beside the Norman and 
Early English church. When marriages and 
inhabitants were once become rare in the 
Marsh, it is said to have jumped down in sur- 
prise at the coming of a man and a maid (a 
"Whitgift woman?") to be wed. And so on, 
through the fields and sheep pasture, over the 
dikes and sluices to Kent Ditch, and Sussex. 



THE CALL TO ARMS 37 

Into Rother Levels I rode, with "the gates of 
Rye" full in sight. 

"See you the windy levels spread 
About the gates of Rye? 
O that was where the Northmen fled 
When Alfred's ships came by." 

I may not have it just aright. I entered by 
the north side, under the Landgate, and went 
up to High Street, to the right along it 
("Flushing" Inn), and to St. Mary's, Rye 
Church, a beautiful grey pile, of nearly every 
style of architecture, its crowning beauty the 
bell tower and gilded cherubs that point the 
time. Around it to the left leads you to Ypres 
Tower and the Gungarden of Queen Bess. 
The view from there is superb: Folkestone, 
Dover, Hythe, and the Marsh to the left; 
Rother Levels, the Strand, Rye Harbour be- 
low; the squat firm guardian castle across the 
Marsh, and the Channel beyond; while at the 
right you see Winchelsea and down the east- 
ern part of the bare South Downs. Sussex 1 

**In a fair ground — in a fair ground — 
Yea, Sussex by the Sea !" 

Cheero! Forgive the hopeless jumble of this 
letter, and let me hear of your Cambridge stay, 



38 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

your plans, and yourself! If you will be so 
kind! 

Yours, as ever, 

Arthur A. Stanley. 

The stiff formality of the following letter 
should be noted. In all his correspondence 
with his father Wainwright evidently consid- 
ered whether or not one of his own officers was 
to see what he wrote. With them he was, of 
course, "A. A. Stanley," and he consistently 
played his part. Once in, he thought it pru- 
dent to preserve his secret scrupulously. 

C. of E. Soldiers' Club 
Folkestone, Kent 
June 29, 1917 

Dear Sir: 

I was very glad to hear from you, for your 
letter arrived this morning, in a transit of 
eighteen days, which is very good time, at 
present conditions. I am glad that you heard 
from me, for with the submarine sinkings de 
ce temps the whole business is quite uncertain. 

I hardly know where to begin, really. I 
knew that Gyles would be in something by this 
time, and it is fine that he has the chance for a 
commission. He must be going through much 
the same routine that I experienced at Platts- 



THE CALL TO ARMS S9 

burg. I surely hope that he will gain his stars 
(as I say involuntarily, for the British subal- 
tern wears first one star, and on promotion 
to full Lieutenant two — ^but in the States' 
army one white bar is worn on the shoulder) . 
The star is like this [sketch], in gilt metal. It 
reads, ''Tria Juncta In Uno" with three minia- 
ture crowns in the centre. Is he out for any 
particular branch — Cavalry, Artillery, or the 
plain reliable Infantry? I am writing to him, 
and please remember me to him. . . . 

America has come into it strongly enough, 
it appears from this side the water, even if 
she did start rather late. I have heard of a 
number of my friends among the fellows — 
college chaps at Hanover and Harvard — and 
they have gone in almost to a man. Indeed, 
every one that I knew at all well has joined. 
Edward Hubbard is in the Hospital Naval 
Reserve, Sydney Stanley a cadet at the Har- 
vard O.T.C., which I attended last fall on the 
original basis ; Francis Foxcrof t is in the Naval 
Reserve, a "Jackie"; Lauriat Lane and his 
room-mate are driving ambulances in France, 
I have heard. Thirty or forty Dartmouth un- 
dergraduates are at Plattsburg, Gould writes 
me ('17, A.B. — ^he was planning a journal- 
istic beginning). 



40 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

America has begun well, and will carry on 
in the same way, I think. I wish for certain 
reasons that I had known that she would finally 
take the side she has. It could have changed 
matters much. But I could not know it, and 
I believe you understand how I felt — that I 
could not, in honour, stay out if America 
should take no action. It would have been a 
fine thing if I could have stayed and gone now 
with the rest, and Gyles — but there is little use 
speaking of it now. I wish only that I may 
carry on to take a man's part in this thing. II 
n'y a pas rien de plus a dire. 

This Kent is a wonderful part of this won- 
derful little island, and well it is called the 
"Garden of England." 

There was a wonderful spring this year. 
Fair warm weather came about the first of 
May — ^late, it is true — ^but there has been not 
the slightest break up to a few showers this 
week. I have journeyed about quite a little. 
I saw much of the hill and marsh country 
while at Otterpool Camp. . . . 

I like England very, very much. I could 
easily love it as a home, and it is surely greatly 
worth fighting for. 

I have transferred to the Siege Artillery, 
8-inch howitzers, and we expect to leave Shorn- 



THE CALL TO ARMS 41 

cliffe for another training base — ^likely Hor- 
sham, in northern Sussex. . . . We shall be 
two months more in England to train, at least. 
... I am well and healthy, and drawing about 
150 pounds about now. I've gained quite a 
bit. 

lYours sincerely, 

Arthur A. Stanley. 



CHAPTER II 

FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 

Otterpool — The Roman Roads — An Old Schoolhouse 
Transformed — Lympne Castle — Shorncliffe — 
Transferred to the Heavy Artillery — "Gossip of 
Mayfair and the Strand" — Hythe — England After 
Three Years of War 

From here on the letters are arranged in 
chronological order. A glance at his itinerary 
as sent by Wainwright in a letter written later 
to a friend may be of assistance: 

7 April: Docking at Liverpool — journey 
by night to Otterpool Camp, Lympne, near 
Hythe, Kent. 

7 Apr. — 12 May: Five weary weeks of con- 
finement at Otterpool — foot drill, physical 
training et al. Various forbidden sallies into 
Kent at night and afternoons. 

12 May: March to Risboro Barracks, Shorn- 
clifi'e. 

12 May—U July: Drill at Shorncliife — 
foot drill, physical, route marches; course in 

42 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 43 

musketry, gas, and 60-pounder gunnery; jour- 
neys to Dover (almost), Hythe, Romney, Rye, 
Ashford, Watling- Street, and Canterbury. 
Transfer from Field Artillery to Siege Ar- 
tillery. 

Of the small photograph of himself in uni- 
form Wainwright wrote on January 21 to Ed- 
ward Hubbard: "The cap in the photo is the 
active service trench-cap now worn by all the 
British forces in France, and looks exactly as 
it does in the picture. The picture surtout is 
fair, I think, but no more. The shoulder-belt 
is a bandolier, and I am carrying the dress- 
whip which every artilleryman must wear out 
of barracks." 

[Otterpool Camp, near Hythe'\ 
April 16, 1917 

Deae Ed: 

. . . We arrived in Liverpool April 7, all 
well and happy. . . . The trip from Halifax 
was rough, rather, and the quarters none too 
salubrious ; quite the other way, in fact, but one 
cannot be particular on a trooper. I was as- 
signed to help in the Sergeants' Mess, and 
thereby lived high in the gustatory line for 
more than half the trip. After we landed at 
the pier opposite Birkenhead Beach we went 



'M A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

on board a train of third-class carriages, sevea 
to a compartment, which was not at all 
bad. . . . 

The camp is for quarantine of uncertain 
duration — ^perhaps only till the 20th, perhaps 
three weeks more. There are measles and 
mumps about. We are kept (supposedly) in 
close bounds of our five-acre field, but frequent 
eruptions are made, and excellent times spent 
in various places. Kent is a wonderfully beau- 
tiful country, and is as pleasant a place in 
every way as any spot on this little globe. It 
is called the "Garden of England," and must 
certainly be that. Everywhere you find the 
old brick and stone houses and long hedge- 
rows. One has to see it to know it. Parts of 
Massachusetts — Ipswich, Amesbury, New- 
bur yport — resemble Kent quite strongly. . . . 

We shall move on to Shorncliffe, near 
Folkestone — the artillery camp — within a 
week or two, probably, to train for the real 
thing. . . . 

Yours, as ever, 

Aet. 




WAINWRIGIIT MERRILL 

In Uniform of Canadian Field Artillery 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 45 

Sd Reserve Battery, C.F.A. 
Otterpool Camp, Area No. 3 
Lympne, near Hythe, Kent 
April 20, 1917 
Dear Syb: 

We have had a couple of days of fine 
weather. (Just ducked my head as an K.F.C. 
plane skimmed about ten yards over the tent. 
We're getting used to them now. Yesterday 
one, in alighting, missed me by about twenty 
feet.) No one ever saw a spring like this — 
not in thirty years. The Mail is full of it every 
morning: sad wails for le meuoo temps. They 
blame the firing in France, the supposed 
change of course of the Gulf Stream, which 
aforetime flowed round this little island — and 
everything else is blamed. 

Here in the Old Land, when anything 
doesn't suit anybody, he writes to the papers 
about it. The Daily Mail is one of the best 
penny papers, and on the editorial page, and 
facing it, are found daily columns of com- 
plaints about various matters, from Eggs to 
Elephants, including Bread Waste, Potatoes, 
Weather, Returned Soldiers' Special Park 
Benches, the Latest German Atrocity, War 
Loan, Lax Conscription Tribunals, et al. It 
is a harmless diversion, in the main, and eases 
the mind. The Herald (Boston) has evidences 



'46 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

of a like nature, but less degree. . . . Here 
they often do real good. The press has much 
more influence here, and when an M.P., for 
example, is criticised in the Mail or the Times 
or the Express^ he feels bound to answer it by 
a return letter. One thrust provokes another, 
and so on ad infinit. . . . 

Our food continues good in quality, but de- 
plorably meagre in quantity. One slice of 
bread with margarine, one small potato, two 
spoonfuls of meat stew, and half a cup of tea 
constitute a meal. But this is only temporary 
— ^while we are under training here at "Mud" 
pool. At Shorncliffe we shall dine as do the 
Imperials — a pint of excellent tea, a quarter 
of a loaf of bread, abundant jam, margarine, 
etc. But in the food line comes woe. You 
know me as something of a — er — food-con- 
sumer. . . . The joy of every Briton, his aft- 
ernoon tea, is to be curtailed! Forbidden are 
all tea cakes, muffins, crumpets, fancy cakes, 
et al. 

I have held for several days a beauteous job. 
It is, namely, that of camp paper-picker, on 
the Sanitary Fatigue. I go on no more vulgar 
parades. At nine I amble around for perhaps 
an hour, securing pieces of paper. I then re- 
tire to my book, my pen, or my journal. At 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 47 

two in the afternoon I perform likewise — for 
half-an-hour. Then, at about three o'clock, I 
retire for the day — to follow the aforemen- 
tioned pursuits, or to seek some lordly adven- 
ture on the Kentish highway — the "Broad 
Highway" indeed. The identical "Broad 
Highway" of Farnol runs past the foot of our 
lane. It is the London Road to the left, and 
the Folkestone and Dover Road to the right. 
We believe we shall not be here long. But 
all such things are verily in the hands of the 
Powers that Be. Let it rest with them. I am 
content to remain here in Arcady-with-some- 
Restrictions. It's wonderful, that's all. And 
a day like this makes you really feel Brown- 
ing's — ' 

"Oh, to be in England 
Now that April's there!" 

This afternoon, if all goes well, for the Can- 
terbury Road. It leads straight over the hills, 
and ever on, with old inns and houses by the 
way, that one time cheered the pilgrim to 
Thomas, saintly Thomas, in Christ-Church by 
the North Gate, for whom Dan, "the little 
scrivener," held forth: 



48 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Whan that Aprille with his schoures soote 
The drought of March hath perced to the roote 
And Zephirus eek, with his sweete breethe 
Inspired hath in every holte and heethe 
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne 
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne ; 
Than priketh hem Nature in hir corages 
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages 
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, 
And specially from every shires ende 
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende 
The holy blisful martir for to seke 
That hem hath holpen when that they were seeke. 

Wonderful lines, too, youthling. Chaucer 
knew it and felt it. God, but it's a thing be- 
yond price — "Spring in the Kentish lanes!" 
Until later. 

As ever, 

Aet, l^o. 343939. 

73d Battery Draft, C.F.A. 
Otterpool Camp, Lympne, near 
Hythe, Kent 

April 21, 1917 

Dear Ed: 

This is Saturday, and here we have a half- 
holiday, as usual. The past few days have 
been quite warm, and joy pervades in conse- 
quence. I intend walldng out this afternoon. 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 49 

The birds are carolling away as they only do 
in Kent, I think. And I am for a walk. 

Later. A walk it was. Out from camp 
here on the South Downs, down into Sellindge, 
with its Richard II church, and to the shop for 
tea and sweets. Then on by the London Road 
(Sixty- two miles to London Town!) and turn- 
ing right and north, past the "Swan" inn and 
the Forge, down Swan Lane a couple of miles 
to the high row of hills opposite. Up the side, 
past the chalk pits and Sellindge manor-house, 
you turn into Stone-Street. Straight it runs, 
dipping over the hills of the wooded Weald 
of Kent, curving slightly here and there, but 
always returning to the course. 

I walked this mile or two with a native 
Kentishman, and we talked of the weather, 
the war, and the old Street. He turned event- 
ually into his cottage, and I carried on. 

On either side of the road lie ridges, hedged 
over, and beyond them other level spaces that 
are now grass-grown, but show that the road 
was broader once, A flint road it is, curving 
slightly on the top, hard and ringing to the 
feet, and showing no sign of mud after rain. 
Hedges and stiles line it continuously; a ruined 
house here and there ; the remains, perhaps, of 
a castra — they are all over England. 



50 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

I reached the hamlet of Ehnsted, seven 
miles from the London Road, about a quarter 
before six, and stopped at the "George," an 
ancient stone hostelry with a shining tap -room 
and polished inn-parlour. I had supper up, 
and was glad enough to eat it in the stone- 
flagged inn kitchen with the publican, a beefy- 
faced old codger in green velveteens, and his 
wife. Eggs and bread-and-butter and tea, 
with jam and cake, was the fare, since mine 
host would have no meat in till the next day 
(war-time!) , and finishing off with half-a-pint 
of their excellent ale I paid my score — two 
shillings — and turned south on to the highway 
again. I was in camp by eight-thirty. 

There is a fascination about a Roman road 
that is lacking in other roads : it runs straight 
and undeviatingly over the hills, on and on till 
its goal is reached. There are many of them 
in England. Ceesar, I suppose, began it, and 
when Britannia became a province they were 
an imperative need. Watling- Street, running 
from Dover through Canterbury and London 
northwest to the west coast by Shropshire, is 
perhaps the best known. From London to 
Canterbury it is immortalised as the route of 
Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims. It is the 
"Dover Road" of "Two Cities," all the Vic- 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 51 

torian novelists, and of twentieth-century act- 
uality too, for the modern Dover highway fol- 
lows Watling- Street for nearly the entire dis- 
tance. 

The "Great North Road" runs from Lon- 
don into York, and beyond to Hadrian's Wall 
and Scotland. It was up this that Turpin rode 
two hundred miles in ten hours, after a rob- 
bery in Kent, thereby proving an "alibi" to 
the court, who believed the feat impossible, 
when Turpin was found in York on the after- 
noon of the day of the affair. 

There are many other roads, including the 
"Pilgrims' Way," from St. Michael's Mount, 
the old Phoenician quay at Penzance in Corn- 
wall, running along the south edge of the 
Downs, past Salisbury, Guildford, Reigate, 
and Sevenoaks in Kent, to the North Gate and 
Christ- Church, Canterbury — with Thomas a 
Becket's shrine. . . . 

Sunday last a young urchin from Bethnal- 
Green, E., and I walked down to Hythe, con- 
sumed tea and buns, and went on in the 'bus 
to Sandgate. Here we got oif and climbed 
the cliif to the "Leas," Folkestone's famous 
watering-place. We walked along it toward 
Folkestone, past the huge hotels — Metropole, 
Cecil, etc. — ^into Folkestone. All manner of 



52 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

men, and women, were on that promenade: 
returned Imperials and Canadians; new 
Canadians; blue-overalled convalescents; one- 
starred Imperial subalterns; R.F.C. boy 
Flight-Lieutenants — ^the best in the Kingdom 
— nineteen years old, with little waxed mous- 
taches ; ferociously hirsute old Colonels ; R. N. 
Middies and Captains ; French Captains ; Bel- 
gian officers; N.C.O.'s and refugees; heaucoup 
f^^ /emm^.??; and a few exempted men. . . . 
Till the next. 

As ever, 

lAut. 

Lympne Castle, Lympne 
near Hythe, Kent 
May 5, 1917 

Deae Syd AND Ed: 

My giddy pen came very near lying just 
above, when I wrote "April." On April 5 we 
had just sighted Cape Clear, and the weather 
was not as now. 

JSTo matter how hard I might try, I could 
not give you the true spirit of Kent, and I 
would sorely like to do so, for I feel it deeply, 
and indeed any one would, at this time of the 
year. I am writing in an ancient gabled two- 
story house, of plaster and stone, with thatched 
roof, that was the village school in the sev- 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 53 

enties. The windows are set with small leaded 
panes, with wrought-iron fastenings and rods. 
The floor is of brick flagging, worn in certain 
paths by the tread of feet. In the corner of 
the room a hole furnishes a place for a ladder 
to the loft above, which is hung with herbs. 
I fancy there are staircases elsewhere in the 
old cottage, but they are not in evidence. It 
is now used as a Church soldiers' reading- 
room and tea canteen, and, I am sorry to say, 
will soon close, owing to the starting of a 
Y.M.C.A. hut near by. 

In front of the house, beyond the crocuses 
and primroses in the garden, is the High- 
Street, for even this little hamlet has that dis- 
tinction. There are three old farm-houses in 
a row, a block of old stone cottages, the village 
store and post-office, then a right-angle in the 
High- Street, and another row of the same 
white houses, and the servants' hall and mews 
of the "great house," Lympne Castle, the par- 
ish manor. 

The castle lies just beyond, on the side of the 
stone roadway, with two towers and battle- 
ments toward the south. Beyond is St. 
Stephen's, Lympne church. Where the High- 
Street bends at the store is a paved lane, lead- 
ing sharply down to the gardeners' lodge, at 



54 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

the cliff edge. Below this, 150 feet or so, is 
the Castra Lemanis, the square walls of the 
Roman camp still standing, intact in many 
places, these 1900 years. I have a stone from 
the wall ; round and well-set in the lime it was. 
One can conjecture at ease over the old ruin. 
Did the legionary in bronze hoop -armour, who 
laid the stone in place, relate some anecdote 
to his fellow of Nero's wild court? or mayhap 
— "I hear that Pilatus at Hierosolyma has had 
a great to-do with the Jews over some fanatic 
or other — a certain Cri — Cristus, I think, 
whom he sent to the cross — bah! what rabble! 
Come, Aulus, a bit more of the mortar!" Oh, 
well — fancies! And yet, quien sahe? 

Kipling has written a new book. ISToyes, 
Wells, and Conrad are silent just now. Wells 
is still pursuing the British monarchy, how- 
ever, in the papers. It is rather a pity that he 
is too old to join up. Hewlett wrote an excel- 
lent skit for the Mirror the other day, on what 
the late-middle-aged author can do for the 
country these days. Amusing, rather. 

The hope is rather widely expressed that the 
War will end by the fall. If the right terms 
can be had, let's hope for it. But — ^fifty-nine 
British merchantmen were bagged last week, 
fifty-five the week before, and on^y twenty- 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 55 

eight two weeks ago. The Admiralty is jolly- 
well catching it from the ha'penny sheets, and 
the Mailj with John Bull of course, has been 
quite nasty. ... 

Yours, 

Art. 

2d Reserve Battery, C.F.A. 
Risboro Barracks, Shorncliffe Camp 
near Folkestone, Kent 
May 13, 1917 

Dear Ed: 

Your obedient servant landed here yester- 
day noon from Otterpool, with all of our ar- 
tillery draft there encamped — 1500-odd men 
and officers. We marched. Joy was abroad, 
for Otterpool the cursed was left behind. I 
slept all the afternoon, and went up to Folke- 
stone in the evening. 

Shorncliffe is a permanent artillery camp, 
founded a hundred years ago, nearly, for the 
mobilisation and home-training of the Home 
Forces— the R.F.A., R.H.A., and R.G.A. 
There are long lines of brick barracks and hut- 
ments, with fine sand parade grounds. Ross 
Barracks are the quarters for the drivers, and 
Risboro for the gunners and signallers, now 
that Shorncliffe has become, since the War, 
the chief Canadian artillery depot. 



56 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

I am assigned as a gunner to the heavy guns, 
60-pounders, I think, for training here. We 
may be put on the 18-pounders, but it does 
not look so. At all events, I am apparently 
a gunner, my height and weight being in the 
way of my going as a driver. Of course, things 
have not really begun yet, and there may be 
changes. I am in a tent just now, but to- 
morrow we go into huts, and fine huts they are 
— bunks (springs!), shelves, stoves, lavatory, 
et cetera. 

Shorncliffe is between Cheriton and Sand- 
gate, about two miles from Folkestone, on the 
plateau below the chalk-cliffs. . . . The chalk- 
cliffs show up plainly behind, and suggest 
numerous associations: "Copperfield," and Mr. 
Dick's kite on Shakespeare's Cliff, west of 
Dover, and Shakespeare's Cliff itself, with 
Lear's ravings. Caesar's first sight of Britain 
was these cliffs. Directly opposite them, from 
the Leas at Folkestone, you can plainly see 
Cap Gris-Nez, and the coast from Calais to 
Boulogne. You go into Folkestone a pied, 
or by the 'bus from Cheriton — tuppence 
ha'penny tariff. There is a cinema in Cheri- 
ton, half-a-dozen, with a legit, theatre, in 
Folkestone, so one does not lack for amuse- 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 57 

ment. American films are the rule. Chaplin 
is still the thing. . . . 

And now for the gossip of Mayfair and the 
Strand — ^which is tout le monde to England. 
Bread is being reduced by voluntary ration- 
ing to four pounds a person a week; potatoes 
are nearly unobtainable, sugar very scarce; 
tobacco has risen a penny and tuppence on the 
five-pence packet, and is scarce in many places ; 
butter is two shillings and margarine becom- 
ing scarce, even more so than butter; meat is^ 
more plentiful, and the "meatless day" order 
is abolished (which decreed one day without 
meat every week — Wednesday in London, 
Thursday elsewhere) ; horse racing is banned 
by the Government ("public opinion and the 
scarcity of corn") ; Newmarket deserted; the 
Derby and the Oaks will probably not be run 
— ^but opinion is going the other way, against 
the Government; the House is in secret ses- 
sion daily, Bonar-Law presiding in the Pre- 
mier's absence; the Admiralty is widely criti-^ 
cised for the damage done by the U-boats ; the' 
Prince is going to take an English bride, and 
hence one not of the Royalty; he is strongly 
urged to drop his motto, ''Ich Dienf for pa- 
triotic reasons; volunteers are called for for 
the Army, up to fifty years; compulsion may 



58 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

extend to that age ; starch is banned, and aboli- 
tion of stiff collars and shirts is near; soft 
stocks and complete change of men's clothes is 
advocated — knee-breeches and stockings again ; 
girls' conduct in public is criticised, and they 
are said to be losing their "manners" — (too 
open and free going-about with soldiers — 
shocking!) ; Captain Ball, D.S.O., V.C, who 
downed fifty Boche aircraft, is missing; if 
Lens Cathedral is attacked by the Huns, our 
reprisal will be Cologne Cathedral; etc. . . . 

We may be here for a month, or two or more 
— ^it's uncertain. Cheerio! 

As ever, yours, 

Art. 

It is interesting to follow from the start 
Wainwright's delight at the new cry of 
"Cheero." To one who had long held as his 
watchword 'Hou jours gaif "Cheero" and 
"Cheerio" made an instant appeal. He could 
use the phrase lightly, when waving to a pass- 
ing stranger; and yet, like Donald Hankey's 
"Philosopher," he could make it a text for 
some of the deepest lessons the war had to 
teach. 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 59 

Shorncliffe, Kent 
June 3, 1917 

Dear Syd: 

. . . Three days ago I visited Hythe with 
one Balkwill of the Battery, once of Toronto 
U., and something of a kindred spirit. We 
went up the bluff back of the town, with its 
narrow stone houses and connecting passages, 
that, in the palmy days of "The Gentlemen" 
in Kent and Sussex, gave convenient access 
from one house to another, from street to 
street, sheltering temporarily Lyons Silk, 
Rouen scarfs, Bordeaux wines, Valenciennes 
lace, and fine satin out of Normandie and 
Bretagne, Poitou and Gascogne — ^to the confu- 
sion of irate officers of the King's Customs. 
The houses and cottages of this part of the 
town are practically intact, and, with the fine 
High- Street, with its old inns and shops, 
scarcely twenty feet broad, winding under the 
hillside, are a fine reminder of le vieiioj temps. 

There is a stone set in the wall of the "Gold- 
en Lion" in High-Street that reads, in XVIII 
century letters, "To London Bridge, 71 miles: 
to Ashford 14." This is the London Road of 
those days: London, Borough, Pembury, 
Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tenterden, Ashford, 
Hythe, Folkestone, and Dover Pier. 



60 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

The church, above the town, has a crypt with 
a great number of skulls and bones showing, 
the remains of an ancient battle between the 
Saxons and the Britons near Sandgate, south 
of Shorncliff e. It is a Norman affair. . . . 
Two miles north of Hythe is Saltwood Castle, 
in the village of that name, where, on a De- 
cember night of 1170 A.D. the four Norman 
knights held council on the dark deed that 
should follow. The next morning they rode 
north along Stone-Street, and in at the Riding- 
gate to Christ-Church gate, for the murder of 
Becket. And likewise, but with very different 
purpose, the world has done ever since. . . . 
Yours, with luck! 

Art. 

6th Siege Section 

Shorncliff e, Kent 

July 6, 1917 

Dear Francis: 

Ed told me about you, and I was very 
pleased, believe me, to learn that you were in 
it even before la guerre declaree — ^but was it 
much of a wrench, leaving H. and the Yard, 
and all that? God knows it was for me. I 
felt completely lost — it being, as you see, the 
first time since I was four years old that I 
had my days to myself at that time of year. 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 61 

But only for a week was it so. Then came the 
musical Sergeant's voice to break the monot- 
ony — and indeed the same has broken it very 
effectively ever since. 

Mon Dieu, but I am overjoyed to see all that 
America is beginning in this thing : it is great, 
and none appreciate it better than the British 
people. The Glorious Fourth went off finely 
in London. So carry on, mon ami, carry 
on! . . . 

A Dartmouth friend of mine writes me re- 
cently from there, with much good news of 
what Hanover has sent forth into the War. 
At his writing (and that of an English in- 
structor of mine) there were only four hun- 
dred left that had not gone in. That is well 
indeed. . . . You may remember that I first 
wore a uniform there. There were a scant 
two hundred of us — jeered and hooted at, and 
occasionally praised a bit. Well, ga est temps 
perdu and gone. But I look back on Dart- 
mouth with much more pleasantness than I 
once did. . . . 

tYours, as ever, 

AeTHiUR. 



m A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Risboro Barracks, ShorncUffe, Kent 
July 10, 1917 

Deae Me. Lane: 

... I never hope to find better spirit than 
is manifested everywhere in omnibus ordinibus 
here in the Old Country, in this third year of 
war shortly closing. The men, all the fit, are 
at the War itself, except the "C.O.'s" (not 
"commanding officers" but "conscientious ob- 
jectors"), of which a few remain. The women 
work at munitions, clerking, V.A.D., Women's 
Auxiliary, office jobs at the Front, cooks in the 
camps — with no shame offered by the soldiers. 
The old men tend allotments and gloat over 
the size and quality of the potato crop. The 
boys run 'buses, clerk in shops, and all that 
sort of thing. The flappers are perhaps at 
once the least and most patriotic of all. They 
do no work to speak of, but greatly cheer the 
Subs (Second Lieutenants) and others on that 
tour in Elysium known as Seven Days' Leave 
— ^back to Blighty! And "Cheero!" is the call 
everywhere in this dark time, the irrepressible 
optimism of the British, who dearly love to 
grouse (= Yankee "kick") but turn it all into 
a joke at the finish, which is the main thing. 
All luck to the British — ^and in their falling 
may the earth lie lightly on them. . . . 



FROM KENTISH TRAINING CAMPS 63 

Great news has reached me of the doings in 
America this simimer — and, so far as I have 
heard, of my friends nullus ah est, which is 
good indeed. You probably know more of it 
than I, but some things you may not have 
heard. My brother Gyles is hunting a com- 
mission at Plattsburg. A good friend of mine 
at Dartmouth, P. L. Gould, '17, is there also, 
and with him many others. Edward, Sydney, 
Foxcroft, and your son are carrying on in the 
Day's Work, each in his own way. 

I would be very glad if I could be among 
them now — that all might do it together; but 
it was not so written, and my way lay differ- 
ently. As to this matter I cannot say much, 
except that for me it was the only course. I 
left no word of my action because those who 
would understand it might be few. I well 
knew who they were, and had no wish to con- 
done or explain to those who would blame me. 
I had chosen my way, and it must at best be a 
lonely one. I thank God that my father is 
glad of what I have done. . . . 

I should be happy to hear from you with 
your American news at any time, and I hope 
to hear it soon! My best wishes to yourself, 
and Frederick, and the Scouts, and my friends. 
Tell the Scouts that, now that America is in 



64> A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

this thing, they must carry on with it till the 
Huns are licked to a standstill, for nothing 
else will do! 

Sincerely your friend, and sometime Scout, 
Aethur a. Stanley. 
No. 343939, C.G.A. 



CHAPTER III 

AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 

From Shorncliffe to Roffey Camp in Sussex — Horsham 
Routine — ^A Walk to Broadbridge — To Cuckfield by 
Bicycle— "Deah Old Blighty" 

Wainwright's resume, already referred to, 
shows well what he remembered best: 

lA July: Train to Horsham, N.-W. Sussex; 
Siege School there at Roffey Camp. 

IJf- July — 2Jt. 'August: Horsham Siege 
School — gun drill, foot drill, howitzer drill, 
ropes and tackle, knots, hoists, route marches, 
et cetera. 

2Ji. August: Train to Bexhill, Sussex (near 
Hastings) : waiting camp before Lydd train- 
ing. Journeys over Pevensey Levels, to 
Brightling and Battle. 

28 August (?): Train to Lydd. Firing 
Camp. Firing to follow. 

65 



66 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

3d Class Carriage No. 

S.E. <^ C. Ry., en route to 
Dorking, Surrey 
July U, 1917 

Deae Mr. Steaens: 

We have left Tonbridge Town, and are blar- 
ing away for Redhill, Keigate, and Dorking, 
having just left Penshurst now. Our ultimate 
destination is Horsham, Sussex, but one has to 
change at Dorking for the Brighton & South 
Coast line. We might have gone by The 
Wells, East Grimsted, and Crawley, through 
north Sussex, but the S. E. & C. people ap- 
parently wanted to keep us on their line longer. 
Damn the iron horse, anyway: I have no use 
for it, like Tony Weller. It has commercial- 
ised and narrowed Old England. Charing 
Cross — rattle, toot, plunk-a-plunk — ninety 
minutes, and you are in Dover. Hey for the 
more spacious days, a mail-coach and four ! ere 
ever this steam leviathan entered this sunny 
green land; hey for the fanfare of the guard's 
horn, rather than the brazen siren's shriek! 
Well, I can write no more at this rate of legi- 
bihty. We are coming into Redhill. 

Roffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 

We have come. We dropped into Sussex 
by Horley instead of Reigate, and are now 



AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 67 

ensconced very comfortably about a mile and a 
half north of the town. But enough — H.M. 
the Censor doesn't like particulars of the 
troops. We are here for two months, how- 
ever, with the K.G.A. and other Imperial 
units. There are some Portuguese oiScers 
here learning their gun-drill. They wear a 
grey-blue and square-topped cap, much like the 
Huns, for whom they were mistaken at times, 
when they first appeared at the Front, to their 
great discomfort. 

It was a fine trip hitherward. You leave 
Headcorn in the heart of the Weald, and carry 
on directly westward. The green trees and 
vast houses and orchards — ^with the dull hazy 
look of everything — ogives the feeling to one 
that it has been so in the past, is now, and will 
continue. It is so peaceful — this calm old 
Kentish upland, with the dipping hills and 
white roads winding through the fields and 
hedgerows : 

"Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim 
Blue goodness of the Weald." 

At Tonbridge the London Road cuts 
through it. In a low valley it lies. To the 
north the highway leads up to the hilly region 



68 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

of Sevenoaks, over River Hill and Pembury. 
You have read Farnol's jolly novels, "The 
Amateur Gentleman" and "The Broad High- 
way" ? This is their scene, and this old road the 
"Broad Highway." The London Road — all 
roads lead to London — and to Rome! In 
front of the Camp entrance is a finger-post, 
and a milestone near by: 

C 'JN R 

The road runs into the Brighton Road, and on 
through Reigate — the Brighton Road of the 
Regent's palmier days. It is probably rather 
easy to see — que j'aime le vieuoo temps. 

18 July 

We, or rather I, have marked time for these 
few days — the entire camp being C. B.'d for 
something that unfortunately came to pass. 
But now, this evening, we are free. 

Our routine may interest you. Contrary to 
Shorncliffe practice, this camp is run upon 
Imperial lines. "Imperial," in the British 
forces, means Regular Home Army, and the 



AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 69 

Service (war) units thereof: all other troops 
are Colonials, or Territorials, or Volunteers, 
et cetera — and there is a world of difference 
between the first and the latter! We hear 
"Revelly" at 5'Ao, instead of 5; at 6:45 we 
turn out for Reveille Parade — one hour foot- 
drill, signalling, or P.T. ("Physical Jerks" or 
"Physical Torture"). Then comes breakfast 
and clean-up. 

Morning Parade goes at 9, ends at 12:30, 
followed by dinner; at 2, Afternoon Parade, 
ending at 4:30, followed by tea; at 5:15 Lec- 
ture, ending at 6 :15. Then we are on our own 
till 10; late passes till 12, occasionally: those 
alone could be had easier at ShornclifFe. The 
Morning and Afternoon Parades are split into 
hour, three-quarter hour, or two-hour sessions 
— at 6-inch gun-drill, 8-inch, 5-inch, 60-pound- 
ers, signalling, foot-drill, route marching (be- 
loved by all), digging D.D.'s (double-deck 
gun-platforms) , ramming, gun leverage, knots 
and lashings, lectures on gun-drill, laying, tac- 
tics (very little of this — the work is practical 
to extreme). Altogether interesting days 
enough, and not bad hours at all. 

This afternoon there is a Bath Parade in 
addition. Everything in the Army is done by 
parades. You parade for drill, lectures, pay. 



70 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

marching, passes, bath, interview with an 
officer, and more. (Near by there is an effu- 
sive Londoner from Poplar, whose language 
is highly seasoned with "Gawdblimy," and the 
picturesque and distinctive adjective of those- 
born-in-sound-of-Bow-Bells — " — ■ — ,'' c'est 
cLSsez!) 

20 July 

Delays again! But it is always the way. 
This morning, after a bit of a nasty fall yes- 
terday whilst galloping about in P.T., I went 
on Sick Parade to secure that boon of the sol- 
dier, "L.D." — Light Duty. There is another, 
rarer still — ^Excused Duty. But this last is 
rarely dispensed to mortals by the gods that 
hold high heaven. My particular Deus-Ar- 
biter to-day was the Imperial Camp M.O. 
(Medical Officer) — a bit of a waxy old chap 
who in the avant-guerre probably earned a re- 
spectable surgeon's competence in a nice red 
villa in Kensington, or Putney way. He ma- 
nipulated my right arm, and hemmed and 
heyed over it, finally refusing the suppliant 
(Your Humble Obdt.) the wished-for boon 
(of a pleasant day's rest). Anyway, it gives 
one the morning free, so I'll abide the dispen- 
sation, will-he nill-he, of course. The dear old 
thing must have thought I was swanking it. 



AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 71 

or swinging the lead, for he said to a later boil 
case that he gladly gave L.D. to a "real in- 
stance of incapacitation." Oh, well, c^est egal. 
(Later memo, — I did get L.D., after all. 
Joy!) 

Last Sunday I went a great walk out of 
Horsham, to Broadbridge, a be-villa'ed ham- 
let that has claim to notice in Field Place, with 
its grey stone and stucco among the elms — the 
birthplace of Shelley. Stroodpark, beyond, 
westward, is a pleasant country house — the 
Manor of Slinfold, I think. But a mile or so 
further you come out of a wooded patch into 
the green fallow fields and swamp thickets 
about the Arun (river), and straight to the 
south runs Stane-Street, the Roman way from 
Regnum to Londinium (" 'Begnum's Chiches- 
ter,' said Puck"). The fine shingle and flint 
bed is still intact in many places — ^that the 
legions brought in long basket-lines, from the 
coast beaches. Across the Street, by the south 
side of the stream, is Dedisham, the Manor 
House of this parish ("Jook o' Nawf oik's 
property," a tenant told me) . As you come to 
the big farm houses, let out to several holders, 
you cross a moat that is still filled with Arun 
water, and the parados within suddenly shuts 
off the view of the buildings for a time. 



72 



A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 



This was Mediabunum, the taberna vim 
honi of Latin times, and the half-way garrison 
on the Stane- Street. This was the halt at the 
end of the second march, for rest and long 
skins of British ale and mead. Perhaps the 




wet canteen of those times bore some such de- 
vice as this. I picked up flints and Roman 
brick and tile, that are ploughed up constantly 
in the fields. The nearest point on Stane- 
Street, where the road disappears into a track 
over the hillside, with "Roman Woods" flank- 
ing it to the west, is still called "Roman-Gate," 
likely being the site of the decuman that opened 
into Mediabunum. At the top you may see 
how I came. [Sketch.] There were two of 
us — Balkwill of Toronto U., the other a re- 
turned chap who got his gold stripe last winter 
in the T.M.B.'s at Vimy, a school teacher in 
Ontario. 

St. Leonard's Forest extends east from here : 
now, of course, it is pretty well broken up by 



AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 73 

meadow. It extends across the Brighton Road 
to Tilgate Forest and Worth Forest. Ash- 
down Forest and the continuation of the North 
Downs bring you to Rotherfield and Bur- 
wash. You leave Horsham eastwards — as I 
rode yesterday on a second-hand cycle I just 
bought for three quid — by Doomsday Green 
and Birchenbridge House, quite a sizeable es- 
tate. Manning's Heath, Lower Beeding, and 
Plummer's Plain House. You turn here for 
Cuckfield. 

A mile or so out of Horsham I met with a 
youngish chap who borrowed my pump, and 
we carried on together. He wore tweed cycling 
things. My word, but I envied him! for he 
was one of that rare species of the genus Homo 
— "CiviUsf His heart and wind were not of 
the best, and one could easily see by the hard 
breathing at the hills that he should be exempt. 
It was jolly rum to see him sticking it — ^we 
dismounted only once. 

Well — to get on. He was an educated, lit- 
erary sort of fellow, and wrote a bit, short 
stories, he said; Fortnightly, once or twice; 
now reviewed books for the London Fihns, the 
chief cinema people in the British Isles. ("How 
doth the busy little film employ each idle 
bard!" — Lady Montagu, Wells, Shaw, Ben- 



74 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

nett, all have written for the cinema; and d'you 
know, even I, moi qui vous ecrive, have 
thoughts of joining the blessed show, and writ- 
ing a giddy scenario ! ) He talked, sur la route , 
of the War, inevitably; of what certain writers 
wrote on it; of the heroics attributed to parents 
who lose their sons, which he didn't at all be- 
lieve in. He and I hoped that the thing soon 
would end — but, God knows, what's the use of 
hoping? 

He told me of a William Caine who writes 
capitally humorous sketches of present-day 
British life — "not, not Hall Caine, that, that 
abhorred person!" so he evidently didn't like 
"The Christian," and the rest of his. H. Caine 
is prophesying about the war, as many others 
do with (often) little success: Bennett, Noyes, 
Conan Doyle, Belloc (one of the more suc- 
cessful), Wells, and so on. It was a treat to 
hear his accentuation and stressings — quite the 
Harrow and Holywell air, though whether he 
was Cantab, or Oxon. or what, I do not know. 

We rode into Cuckfield about four, and 
stopped for tea at the "Rose and Crown." The 
service and fare were excellent. My acquaint- 
ance, whose name I forget, had to carry on to 
Hayward's Heath and Lewes for the night. 
As for me, I had my bike seen to at a shop. 



AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 75 

and visited the Church, St. Mary's, Early Nor^ 
man, with Norman-Enghsh nave and altar. 
In it there is a wooden tablet ornamented with 
the names of all the vicars and priests from 
1230, when they began to be supplied by the 
Lewes College of Priors. The church was 

founded by William de , Earl of Kent, 

in 1080. 

There is a fine view from the churchyard 
west to Hayward's Heath and the Ouse Val- 
ley, and south over the dim green lowlands 
to Hurstpierpoint, Lewes, and the South 
Downs, where, as it was a misty day, one had 
to fancy the locations of Ditchling, Devil's 
Dyke, and Chanctonbury Ring. Well, some 
day, if so the Three Sisters permit, I shall go 
thither. I learned from my fellow wayfarer 
that Lieutenant John Kipling, son of Rudyard 
Kipling, was killed last year on the Western 
Front. I had not known that. The son can- 
not have been more than eighteen or so. And 
you remember the poem in "A Diversity of 
Creatures" : "But who shall return us the chil- 
dren?" 

I think it is high time that you received these 
rambling notes, so this page shall be the last. 
There has been a fair this week in Horsham — 
an English country fair, of the sort that travel 



76 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

ceaselessly up and down in the warm weather, 
from Edinboro Town to Colney Hatch, from 
Fishguard to Grimsby and Lowestoft, from" 
Land's End to John o' Groat's: the beloved 
flying-horses of "Jackanapes" in Mrs. E wing's 
story, amusement swings, ring games, Small- 
est-Couple-in-the-World, sweets stands, re- 
freshment bars — but, alack ! no waxworks, pan- 
tomime, or pea-and-thimble game ! There is a 
reason, though, of course: "It's the War!" 
But there was abundance of confetti for the 
Tommies to throw at laughing Sussex lasses. 
Every one in England this Spring has been 
singing this noble ditty, so I send it to you. 
It's a bit direct from 1917 England, and Lon- 
don-in-the-East : 

"Tyhe me back to deah old Bligh-tj, 
Put me on the tri/ne for Lunnon Tahn; 
Tyke me over theah, droj) me anyw'ere, 
SrMwmagem, heeds or Manchester, oh, I 

don't care. 
/ should like to see my hest gell ; 
Cuddlin' up again soon she'll he — Whoa! 
Ighty, Iddle}^, Ighty, 'urry me back to 

Blighty, 
Blighty is the plice for me !" 

Blighty, as you probably know, = hi-lawaiti, 
Urdu for "the home district." I think I'm 
right. 



AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 77 

I hope you get this in due season, and that 
your stay in Cambridge was fruitful and 
pleasant. Write me of it, will you? Forgive 
the pen, please, for its faults. My address is 

, 343939, 6th Siege Section, 10th Can. 

Siege Battery, C.G.A., KoiFey Camp, Hor- 
sham, Sussex, c/o Army P.O., London. 
Yours, 

Aet. a. Stanley. 

Roffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
July 15 

Deae Syd : 

. . . We got well settled in camp yesterday 
afternoon — at Roffey, a hamlet a mile and a 
half north of Horsham. We are in wooden 
huts, with hot and cold water, baths, electricity, 
and all that sort of thing. It really is a jolly 
place. Sussex is more congenial and friendly 
than Kent even, and every one wishes you well 
— les filles, les dames, les hommes^ les enfants, 
les chiens, les animaux. . . . 

As ever — ^how goes it all? 

AjRT. 



78 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

6th Siege Section, 10th Can. Siege 
Battery, C.G.A. 
Roffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
July 2^, 1917 

Deae Mr. Merrill: 

I've written twice since I received your let- 
ter, about July 1. We have but recently moved 
here, and I've had very little time to write. 
Yours of June 24 reached me here to-day, hav- 
ing been forwarded from Shorncliffe. 

We left ShornclifPe July 14, proceeaing by 
train from Cheriton Station through Ashford 
and Headcorn. Do you remember the debacle 
in "The Amateur Gentleman," where Barna- 
bas rode from London, on a stormy night, to 
Chichester's place at Headcorn, forestalled 
Cleone, got himself shot by Chichester, and 
witnessed Barrymaine and Chichester's double 
duel? That was here, and you could see the 
little village street and the London Boad. . . . 

Horsham is a pretty town, rather modernly 
be-villa'ed in places, and newer in appearance 
than many towns. It is in the northwestern 
part of the Sussex Weald, the old Andredes- 
wold of the Venerable Bede, a blue, generally 
misty wooded upland region that extends north 
to the North Downs (Dorking, Guildford, 
Reigate) and east to Maidstone and Ashford 
in Kent; south it curves nearly to the South 



AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 79 

Downs, and east through Cuckfield, Ashdown 
Forest, to Battle and Appledore in Kent. It 
is the finest part of Sussex by the Sea. White 
roads, hamlets, and a number of streams split 
up the great green landscape. If possible it 
is more beautiful than Kent. 

We are encamped with Imperial (i.e.. Regu- 
lar Army) units here, in a well-run little camp, 
that it would not be well to speak too much of. 
Fritz and his Fokkers, Albatrossen, and Go- 
thas like to pry into new places for their over- 
head raids. But don't worry on this score. His 
purposes in air-raids are not the losses in build- 
ings and material, principally, for the victims 
are generally women, children, and the infirm. 
They aim at keeping our battleplanes here at 
home, for our harassing and securing of in- 
formation at the Front by them have not been 
relished on his side at all. I do not know how 
much has been passed through to the States 
about the raids. The first Folkestone affair, 
in which I had a fairly lively part, was known 
all over Canada. But enough: Fritz Flieger 
is essentially a coward. He flies, when pos- 
sible, three miles high, losing good aim while 
he gains in his own safety. 

I haven't had my week's leave yet, but this 



80 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

(the King's Leave) can't be taken from me, 
and I'll get it after our training here is done. 
I contemplate visiting Oxford, Stratford-on- 
Avon, the Thames Valley, and London, with 
a trip into Cornwall and Devon if I can do it. 
You can probably suggest to me things I 
should not miss seeing. I'd be much obliged if 
you would. At the present rate of the mails 
I would receive your answer ui time, I think. 
We are here for six weeks yet. 

Your letters, and others I receive, take from 
three weeks to a month to reach me. Regis- 
tered mail takes a month. . . . Your letters 
are opened by the censor, but untouched so far. 
How about mine ? 

There are some Portuguese officers here, in 
pale blue denim, learning the gunners' artillery 
drill, even as we. They talk a voluble and gus- 
ty stream, but many know French, though few 
any English to speak of. We have to salute 
them. They return it thus : 




AT HORSHAM SIEGE SCHOOL 81 

We salute, as you may know, with palm to 
the front, elbow nearly in line with shoulder, 
forefinger above eye. . . , 

One may secure a week-end pass of thirty- 
six hours once a month or less, and I hope to 
get to Hastings, Battle, and Kipling's village, 
Burwash; and through Surrey on the other 
one I hope for. 

I'm glad Gyles has gone into the Artillery. 
Tell him the heavier the gun the better. I 
transferred, with most of the 2d Battery, C.F. 
A., to the Siege Artillery ( Canadian Garrison 
Artillery), and hence came to Horsham to 
train. I am in a draft to the 6th Battery, 
C.G.A., now at [about six words erased by the 
censor] — ^unless we are shifted to something 
else. It is an 8-inch howitzer battery — the new 
British gun, that was first used in this war. 
It's a bit big, you know, so we are from two 
to five miles back of the very Front. We're 
not hit by Fritz nearly so often as the lighter 
pieces that are up close. But it's mighty hard 
work, and not at all a cushy job. {Cushy 
means "soft," "easy," in American Eng- 
lish.) . . . 

We have the British uniform and kit in most 
things, and in the British Army, of which we 



82 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

shall be a part when we go over, a private's 
time is spent in his spare periods, at morning, 
noon, and eve, in shining his brass buttons, 
cap-badge, boots, bandolier, bandolier-brass, 
and cap -strap. The U. S. uniform doesn't 
have these shine-accoutrements. . . . 
lYours sincerely, 

Ajrthur a. Stanley, 



CHAPTER IV 

IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 

Christ's Hospital — The Head — ^A Deputy-Grecian — 
The "Rose and Crown" at Burwash — Bateman's — 
In S. Hemsley's Tap-room — ^An Innkeeper's Rem- 
iniscences of the Kiplings — On Pook's Hill — "Oak 
and Ash and Thorn" — To Battle and Hastings 

6th Siege Section 
lOth Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A. 
Roffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
July 27, 1917 

Dear C. Emma Esses: 

In case you know not what the above means, 
you should know that in the British Army, for 
sake of avoiding confusion, certain letters are 
changed, to wit: A becomes Ack; B, Beer; D, 
Don; M, Emma; P, Pip; S, Esses; T, Talk; 
V, Vick. Consequently, when one knows a 
thing thoroughly, the common expression is 
that he knows it from "Ack to Zed." But the 
upshot of it all is that my form of salutation 
denotes "C. M. S." 

You have heard of Charles Lamb and S. T. 
Coleridge, mayhap, what time you pursued the 



84 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Anglic muse ? Well, yesterday I saw them, In 
effigy; saw their quaint cloaks, stocks, and 
shoes, but on bright young British commoners 
whom the Army has not greatly bothered yet ; 
and in a pleasant green estate the Bluecoat 
boys of to-day are learning — 

"Truth, and God's own common-sense, 
Which is more than knowledge !" 

I remember Lamb's essay on Christ's Hos- 
pital in the chronicles of the gentle Elia: I 
often pictured to myself what life must have 
been like in the dirty dear old City, hard by 
Newgate and that ancient monolith, now so 
changed, the Old Bailey. What was urbs is 
now rus and riisticus, and two miles south of 
Horsham Town I went last night to see this 
wonderful old school. Visitors may enter and 
visit the buildings on an easily-secured permit. 
I was biking it, and up the asphalt drive past 
the end of the Houses, and along the whole line, 
that begin with Maine and end with Barnes — 
named after famous Old Blues. The lads were 
running about on the lawns, and solemnly 
walking up and down the paths. The gate to 
the school proper was right ahead, with the 
motto of the institution, "Fear God; honour 




THE QUADRANGLE, CHRISX's HOSTITAL, HORSHAM 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 85 

the King," — ^but for some unaccountable rea- 
son it was spelt "honor." The Quad within 
is a handsome place, even with the new red 
brick. I carried on, out the west gate, where 
begin more Houses and Masters' dwellings. 

Coming back from the tour, I spied a kirtled 
maid on the grass and approached, saying, 
"What ho !" or words to that effect. She said 
that she thought I could go through the school, 
and disappeared within, emerging shortly to 
summon me inside to wait. She said "The 
Doctor" would come, but I suddenly realised, 
when the imier door opened, that the kindly- 
looking oldish man, stocky, grey-bearded, and 
of medium height, was the Head. We spoke, 
and he offered to show me about himself for 
a bit, then to find me a guide. A fine old man 
he seemed to me — simple, direct, questioning 
as to my school and university. He knew Har- 
vard quite well. His time was short, and he 
said something of interest about Christ's at 
every word as we crossed the Quad to the Din- 
ing Hall. Eight hundred Blues, the full 
school, eat there, in a handsome oak room about 
the size of Memorial commons — or less, rather. 
Verrio's picture of the granting of the charter 
to Christ's dominates the opposite wall — the 



86 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

longest oil in the world, said the Head. The 
boys ate in perfect order, and there was no 
babel of noise, subsiding into a murmur at his 
entrance. A "mon." sits at the head of each 
table. The lads wait on themselves, while the 
masters, presided over by the Head, are at a 
transverse table at one end. 

We went out and visited the Chapel 
(Christ's Church). They have a wonderful 
organ, said to have cost .£2000. The walls are 
being done with a row of strikingly-coloured 
murals by the decorator of the Panama expo- 
sition. As yet unfinished, they show twelve 
stages in Christ's life. Next we went to the 
Big School — a long hall, seats covering the 
floor, with gilt inscriptions from well-known 
Old Blues' works (Lamb, Coleridge, Pepys 
[?], et cetera), and some Latin, with a band 
of names and years of noted Blues below. 
Coleridge's line was, "He prayeth best who 
loveth . . .;" another, "hos et dvbitamvs en- 
TENDERE EACTis ?" Among the names was Eze- 
kiel Cheever, 1631-33, who taught Latin in 
America, at Boston Grammar School. With 
Eliot he did the Bible into the Mohican dialect. 
The line above is from him, I think. Could 
you find out if he taught at Harvard? The 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 87 

Head asked me to write him if I could learn 
anything more of him.* 

A little later he had to go, and I was turned 
over to a bright-looking lad "not yet gone 
seventeen." We wandered all about, looking 
at the buildings, the "Kugger" greens, the 
First-Five pitch, the House pitches (cricket, 
you know) , the Fives courts, the Masters' ten- 
nis grounds, and so forth. He was a deputy- 
Grecian, my guide, who had a fine manner of 
speech: the School was "topping"; and did 
he like it? — "Rather!" "It's a gorgeous old 
show!" He also knew and liked Stalkey & 
Co. ''G^or^^ow^, isn't it?" "Gorgeous," "rath- 
er," "et cetera" "topping," and the like fla- 
voured it well in traditional style. He confided 
that he hoped to make Grecian this term, and 
stay on till it was time to "go up," meaning the 
university. The Head was a "well-meaning 
old blighter," he said: Upcourt, B.A.,M.A., 
D.D., a Cambridge man, of Oscar Wilde's col- 
lege, whatever that was. We ended with a look 
into his House, "Coleridge," where the boys 
were working at arithmetic — small lads of ten 
and twelve, with a "mon." at the end of the 

• Although Ezekiel Cheever was for seventy years a promi- 
nent teacher in New England, there is no evidence that he 
ever taught at Harvard, nor that h& co-operated with EUot on 
the translation of the Bible. 



88 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

tables. They obeyed him when he reproved 
any dallying — "you jolly well keep your men 
at it," said my guide. Lamb was a deputy-G. 
only, and did not go to the university. More 
luck to my young friend ! His choice was Pem- 
broke, Cambridge. 

"Rose and Crown" 
Burwash Village, Sussex 
29 July, 1917 

I am writing this in the chimney-settle of a 
nine-feet-broad brick chimney. The chimney 
has a tall crane that cooked my dinner, mine 
host's good Sussex beef-pudding, and a fire 
screen of Burwash-forged iron, with a date 
1761. In the next room there is one with this 
coat on it: 




I have been a wonderful pilgrimage, which 
I will write further on shortly. (One can hear 
the "Boom-bitty, boom-bitty!" of "Hal o' the 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 89 

Draft" on the inch-iron plate.* At Glazier's 
Forge it was made, perhaps — the forge now 
kept by Hobden in the life, one of the numer- 
ous family about here. ) 

The "Rose and Crown" is an old coaching 
inn. Over the bar hangs a short brass "blun- 
derbush" with the word LONDON stamped 
on the barrel. ( The publican relates that once 
a Gipsy came in, paid, and, en huvant, spied 
the round mouth, and after a long puzzle said : 
"I have seen plenty queer things, but I'm 
blowed if ever I saw a gramophone like this 
'un.") The rooms are low, timbered, in heavy 
plaster, with massive door- jambs, and stairs 
out o' line, bricked uneven floors, brass warm- 
ing-pans galore; and in the back parlour I 
spied the host's gun, a 16-bore, and shells, so 
occasionally he "looks along a barrel." 

My bedroom (it had a big square rosewood 
four-poster, and a mattress — after barrack 
paillasses!) and most of the other rooms were 
so low that I had to stoop slightly — true Sus- 

* There are several references in the letters that show Wain- 
wright's wide reading in Kipling's works. "Hal o' the Draft," 
"Weland's Sword" (page 97), "Old Men at Pevensey" (page 
135), and "A Centurion of the Thirtieth" (page 133), are stories 
in "Puck of Pook's Hill." "A Priest in Spite of Himself," 
referred to on page 96, comes in "Rewards and Fairies," 
the second volume of "Puck" stories. "Lalun" (page 230), 
is a character in the Indian tale, "On the City Wall." "The 
Story of Ung" (page 233) is a poem written in 1894. 



90 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

sex style. With fanners like John Ridd of 
Oare, they huilt the rooms in their own way — 
as I shall have occasion often to point out — 
"seely Sussex, for everlastin'." I could talk 
on endlessly of this model tavern, but I have 
other things to speak of. Yet — the publican 
had one leg and a wooden pin, on which he 
was very spry. To complete the story he 
should have lost it at Sevastopol, or Tel-el- 
Kebir, or Northwest Frontier '83 — ^but it was 
an ordinary accident. 

I entered Burwash from Heathfield, where 
I landed from the evening train to The Wells. 
You leave Burwash Common at the "Oak- 
down Arms," and make a winding descent into 
Burwash Weald. That was the first view of 
the valley, green and sleepy-looking in the 
setting sun. On my right the woods rose up to 
the bare summit of Brightling, and the obelisk 
standing out against the skyline: past the 
"Wheel" inn and up a rise, down again and up 
a long hill into Burwash village. There is a 
winding plaster and brick street, the "Bear" 
on the right, a row of shops, the butcher's, 
draper's, carrier's, baker's, grocer's, and post- 
office. Elms line the road on either side. The 
"Rose and Crown, S. Hemsley" stands on its 
pole, the inn being back from the road in a lit- 




About Orrz. MiL£. 



BURWASH AND VICINITY 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 91 

tie lane. Beyond, on the right, is the square 
painted granite Congregational Chapel, 
"1857," and two substantial newish brick 
houses, one occupied by a retired Colonel 
Fielding, a great friend of R. K.'s. The hill- 
top drops to the left, the houses continuing, 
and Brightling Road turns down into the val- 
ley on the right, with St. Bartholomew's above 
the finger-post. This is a square hewn-stone 
little building, with a fine and beautiful tower 
and chime of bells, in Perpendicular and Late 
Norman style. The God's-acre surrounds it, 
with grey old stones in the green, cut by slop- 
ing gravel paths. Burwash ends a little be- 
yond, with a new inn, the "Admiral Vernon," 
on the left, and the Rectory on the right. 

I turned into the "Rose and Crown," and 
a mellow Sussex pint was welcome indeed. I 
was shown my room, and then went out. The 
sun had set, and it was darkening over the val- 
ley and the faintly-lit top of Brightling. Near- 
ly every one in Sussex greets you on the street, 
and I soon found the turning, half a mile back 
on my road, to Bateman's. It winds down the 
hillside, with green hedges at the sides, till you 
see a large grey house with many chimneys 
at the foot. There is a high yew hedge around 
it, a rough garden wall^ outbuildings, and flow- 



92 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

ers in long plots, between which the path leads 
to the main entrance. Above there is a long 
window with leaded panes that looks out on 
the river meadows and widening vallej^ east- 
ward. Smaller windows extend to the right 
on all three stories, and a jutting wing stands 
at the right of the central part. The same is 
duplicated on the left, with a splendid broad 
study window. His own study is not here, 
however. Six chimney-pots, tall brick, top the 
huge central stone chimney. The roof is well 
pitched, of slate. 

It was nearly dark when I reached Bate- 
man's, and the big lower window was brightly 
lighted, and uncurtained. At the risk of rude- 
ness I stopped and looked in. The room was 
lit by electrics in the ceiling. A high dark 
wainscoting, with buif plaster above, ran 
around the room; a broad fireplace v^as let in- 
to the left-hand wall, and small pictures stood 
on the chimney-piece, and hung irregularly on 
the walls. A big table was in the middle, at 
which a middle-aged woman sat, sewing or 
reading, her back to me. Presently a man 
in evening clothes came into the light, rather 
short in stature, his large dark head bald on 
the top. He was speaking. He turned, show- 
ing heavy eyebrows, a prominent nose, with 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 93 

heavy glasses at his eyes, and a thick brown 
moustache. He came toward the window, and 
then went out of view to the right. I went on 
shortly after. The man and woman were Mr. 
and Mrs. Kipling. 

Back in the tap-room at the "Rose and 
Crown" (I went by the lower road, and up 
past the Church) , the innkeeper and I sat down 
to two pewter tankards and a talk. He was 
Sussex born and bred, but with an Essex moth- 
er: his father in the "public" line, Lewes way. 
He came to his inn in the same year that the 
Kiplings came from Rothingdean, whence they 
were driven by the Brighton promenade trot- 
ters to Burne- Jones's villa there. He was glad 
to tell me about R. K. and the family. 

"Many's the time that Mas' Kipling ad- 
dressed the Conservative meetin' for Burrish 
up in the Big Room. I was mostly here in the 
bar, but I mind 'im well. He'd seem to outdo 
himself to be pleasant, an' 'twan't five minutes 
when he'd have 'em all laughin'. I mind he 
said once: 'I don't want to go to Hell next 
week, nor yet to the Devil the week after that.' 
[? — I'd Hke to have heard it! A.A.S.] He 
could hold 'em easy enough, once he got talkin', 
and give you 'Good mornin' ' on the street as 
pleasant as you please. And Jack was a fine 



94 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

straight lad. He and Elsie used to go up to 
the village, and to the shops, the two always 
together, and courteous little gentlefolk they 
were; an' Elsie's grown to be a line homely 
English girl, scarce turned nineteen, I think, 
taking after her father; but her nose is her 
mother's. All we Burrishers like her, trapes- 
in' about in her little motor, and Jack on his 
motor-bike ; like to break his neck, he was, an' 
always going it an' fearless. . . . 

"Burrish always had the name o' bein' the 
roughest town in Sussex. Forty year gone 
they'd crack your head in a week hereabouts, 
if you were a stranger and they had suspicions. 
But Sussex folk have Sussex ways, and if they 
know you they like you, and every one has 
open house to every one else." 

He talked of the Hobdens. 

"I've seen the four brothers, big strappin' 
men they are, sit there on the settle by you an' 
teUin' stories. David was the old 'un, that 
lives at Glazier's Forge by Willingford. 

"The old folk be precious queer people — like 

old Jim . He's eighty now, an' time o' 

HefHe Fair, 'Cuckoo Fair,' we call it here- 
abouts, he always used to come by on the road, 
walkin' the seven mile over to Heffle. He al- 
ways walked, till two year ago he says to me, 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 9^ 

* 'Ems'ey, I've walked to Heffle Cuckoo Fair 
for sixty-two year runnin', but now age she 
must stop it — can I ride in the cart wi' you?' 
When fair was over, April 13 it is, he says, 
*I'1I be comin' nex' year along wi' you, 'Em- 
s'ey.' *R.ight,' I said, but come next year I was 
waitin' with the cart an' the brown cob pony 
half an hour ; an' I saw old Jim hobblin' down 
the road. ' 'Ems'ey,' he says, 'I've walked to 
Cuckoo Fair three an' sixty year, an' — an' I've 
come to think only trampers and good-for- 
nowts go to fairs, so I'll stop at home,' an' 
stop he did!" 

And so we talked till after midnight: how 
young Lord Dacre "fetched up at Tyburn" for 
taking Lord Pelham's deer on Brightling yon- 
der; how Pelham gave the chime to St. Bar- 
tholomew's; how the farmers got poor, and 
well-to-do families became farm-hands and 
basket-makers, through the custom of dividing 
the little property equally, among the several 
sons, thus impoverishing all — no Second Son 
pittance is found here. He had read the Bar- 
rack Room Ballads, and appreciated them — 
the songs of the public house, which he knew 
for true things. Kipling's fanciful books were 
regarded as "no-sense stuff" in the neighbour- 
hood — ^but he wanted to see Mas' Hobden, 



96 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

whom he recognised for old David! David did 
not work for Mr. Kipling, though. It was 
another, or else a different man under that 
name. I saw the Hobdens and Cruttendens 
and FoUens in the bar that evening — for all the 
world like the pictures in "Puck." "Saxon and 
Norman and Dane are they." He spoke of 
tracing the Norman blood, as he could by the 
nose and broad face and eyes, among the coun- 
try folk. I could see it too. These generations 
intermarried, and, in the more remote parts, 
have kept distinct indications of the older days. 
I retired to my four-poster at one. 

The next morning I ate my host's ham and 
eggs with them in their dining room. Then to 
St. Bartholomew's, with the tower and corner 
which I associate now with a certain evening, 
nearly two years ago, when, at Professor Zug's, 
you read "A Priest in Spite of Himself." I've 
always remembered it, my friend — "Yess, 
Yess!" — and the song of Eddi at the end. St. 
Wilfrid came to St. Stephen's, Lympne, by 
Portus Lemanis, too — ^where also I have been. 

It was overcast, and raining quite hard, as 
I hiked, under a light overcoat, to Burwash 
Weald. Down into the vaUey the road winds 
again, and a young thunder shower was in ac- 
tion as I reached the foot at Willingford 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 97 

Bridge, a little stone structure among the 
meadow alders. On the other side are two 
farms. Weland forged the Sword here, and 
here Puck helped him. A trout jumped in the 
pool below, where Hugh hunted them before 
Hastings. Up the hill, with Bog Wood and 
Pook's Hill (as it is called) on the left. "A 
shocking bad road it was," but it's rather better 
now, as I walked my wheel up. The people in 
the farmhouse gave me a glass of milk, and 
would take nothing for it, quite in the old Old 
Country style. Halfway up you have a fine 
view over the meadows and alders, with Hob- 
den's Forge of the book half the distance to 
Bateman's. The River Dudwell is the brook 
of the tales, and in these meadows Dan and 
Una acted "Midsummer Night's Dream," and 
met Puck, Sir Richard, and others. 

I footed it up to Brightling obelisk. It had 
cleared, but it was still misty — and some Im- 
perials were making observations. You could 
see to Battle, Dallington, and the near side 
of the levels by " 'Urstmonsoo," as my publi- 
can called it. Beyond the obelisk is Bright- 
ling village and church. Lord Pelham's 
demesne, and the site of the monastery. I 
walked back to my bicycle, and off into Far 
Wood for Bateman's. There was a track that 



98 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

forked and wound along, and soon I was in the 
wonderfully beautiful wood on Pook's Hill. 
I took the wrong turn twice, and finally got 
on the downhill path. From here was "where 
they hauled the keels." Volaterras is the edge 
of the woods near this point. So out of the 
dear ferny oak wood I went, down the bare 
hillside of Pook's Hill to the meadow road by 
the brook. There is a farm, and beyond it — 

", , . . our little mill that clacks 
So busy by the brook," 

where the children met Hal o' the Draft. The 
road (now) runs to the lower gate by the 
bridge. Immediately at the left the children's 
garden begins. On past the house I went, and 
up the hill to the village again. 

I had a delightful time everywhere: it all 
so came up to expectations. A place where 
two children of this English race, with such 
father, who could write and tell these stories 
for them, might well be in their own Arcady. 
But they grew up, and another order of things 
came to their England: and Dan and Una, al- 
most man and woman now, answered. So 
John ("Jack," as the villagers always called 
him) and Elsie met it well, and stood for their 
country, as their father had told only too well. 



IN KIPLING'S COUNTRY 99 

*Tl.and of our Birth, we pledge to thee 
Our love and toil in the years to be: 



That we may bring, if need arise. 
No maimed or worthless sacrifice." 

And Dan — Second-Lieutenant John Kipling 
— is "missing" since Loos. 

I am sending in this letter what I hope you 
will keep steadfastly, not for the sake of him 
who sends them, hut in some tribute to this 
boy and girl, their beautiful childhood, and the 
sacrifice of one of them: an oak, an ash, and 
a thorn leaf, which I gathered on Pook's Hill, 
here in this England. And may they magic 
you, my friend, into never forgetting Dan, 
whom we both in a measure loved, who has now 
gone on. Ah, God, the pity of it — ^his father 
and mother and sister here — and he is not. 
And yet will Flanders earth lie lightly on him, 
for in his case it was so true that dulce et de- 
corwm est, pro Patria mori! 

I returned to Hastings by way of Etching- 
ham, Robertsbridge, John's Cross, Battle, and 
Hollington. I went into Battle Abbey (it 
was raining quite hard from Mountfield and 
Battle Wood Hill) , across the green in front 
of the Library, to the stone wall that overlooks 



100 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

the narrow oak-wooded valley and brook. 
This was the Saxon line — ^the Duke was over 
yonder, charging down on the British bowmen. 
It was very still and quiet in the falling rain. 

**See you our stilly woods of oak. 
And the dread ditch beside? 
O that was where the Saxons broke 
On the day that Harold died!" 

I reached Hastings at 5 :30, missed my train, 
and returned to Horsham this morning — ^hap- 
pier by far, yet sadder indeed. Write on! 
Yours, 

Aethue a. Stanley. 
«Ack Ack Esses, 343939." 



CHAPTER V 

WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 

Life at Roffey Camp — Bairnsfather's Cartoons — On 
Fatigues — Democracy as a Theory — The British 
Artillery — The Cavalry — The Infantry — Gun Drill 
and Routine— "Cheero!"— The "Y" 

6th Siege Section 
10th Can. Siege Bty. 
"Roffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
SI July, 1917 

Dear Ed: 

. . . We have every Saturday from 12 to 
10 p.m., and Sunday the same. We can move 
around anywhere, with some faint caution in 
big towns, on foot or bicycle. One may go 
certain distances by train. For twenty-mile 
journeys or more, one must have a pass, unless 
one leaves from and alights at small stations, 
where there are no M.P.'s (Military Police). 
If one is careful he may go practically any- 
where that his purse will take him. London is 
rather risky, though. On week-end passes 

101 



102 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

(Saturday noon to Monday reveille) one may 
get a railway soldier's warrant, securing a 
ticket to any place at less than half -fare, third- 
class, of course. On your week's leave, which 
every soldier receives before going to France, 
you may go anywhere in the British Isles, free 
of charge. 

Of course we are free every evening from 
6:15 to 10, and one can cycle quite a distance 
in that time. I have been around Kent and a 
good bit of Sussex on bikes. I've bought one 
depuis une semaine for £3. I can sell it back 
at no great loss, and also rent it out for two 
shillings a day. . . . 

We came here July 14. Since then we have 
been well occupied at learning the how and 
wherefore of siege gunnery in the British 
Army. Our gun is the 8-inch howitzer, Mark 
VI, which was originated in this war for the 
purpose of resisting Fritz. It is a big gun, 
and rather hard work, but of course we fire 
more seldom than the smaller fry. We shall 
be here about four weeks more, then proceed 
to Lydd, Komney Marsh, Kent, for* firing 
practice. We shall be there from two to six 
weeks, depending on our ability, for we must 
accomplish fourteen "shoots" with a certain 
degree of success. A "shoot" is what you 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 103 

might imagine, a spell of firing varying from 
one hundred to two hundred rounds under 
varying conditions — some short range, some 
long range, some bombardment, some barrage 
work, some aeroplane work, where we receive 
orders from a battleplane. After Lydd we go 
to Bristol, probably, for our guns, and embark 
from a Channel port thereafter — ^when, it is 
uncertain. We do not expect to get over till 
ISTovember, which means a rainy Picardy win- 
ter, but a radiant northern spring! . . . 

Yours, 

Aet. 

6th Siege Section 
10th Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A. 
Roffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
4 August, 1917 

Deae Mr. Merrill: 

Yours dated July 17 came in to-day — ^rather 
a quick trip, only eighteen days. 

I'm glad Gyles could get down to see you 
all — ^but of course they would allow leave when 
the term of instruction is so long. Does he like 
it? I hope their food is a bit more varied than 
when I was there. Our food here is really of 
better variety and quality than that which we 
had at Plattsburg. The quantity here occa- 
sionally might be bettered, but it is very good 



104 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

on the whole, and excellent considering the 
difficulties here in war-time. This is the anni- 
versary of the day of Britain's entering — three 
years ago. And Germany is not beaten yet. 
But the third anniversary of der Tag comes 
with a much dimmer outlook for the Boche, 
thank God. 

Gyles had better join the siege guns, unless 
he wants to stick with the horses. It's vastly 
better in the Siege, and you do more good, I 
think, though it's harder work, manually. . . . 

My bicycle is a good earner, and has netted 
me seven shillings the past week, on the days 
I did not need it. It was a topping invest- 
ment, you know, for it offers such ease in get- 
ting about, and if you want to go anywhere, 
on a bit of a trip, it saves fares, and often you 
cannot get a railway pass, so it is doubly use- 
ful. 

Did I tell you about my trip to Rye? I got 
some souvenirs of Canterbury in my three 
trips, and a small white stone cross on a pedes- 
tal, made from Cathedral material, at the curio 
shop within the Precincts. Unfortunately the 
pedestal broke off in my bag. I am sending 
some cards I have picked up. I sent a mount- 
ed miniature of the painting of Chaucer's Pil- 
grims. I hope it came safely. 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 105 

A week ago I secured a week-end pass, and 
took train for Hastings at soldier's-warrant 
rate, 4s. 3d. for the return ticket, third class. 
You know fares in England are up 50%, and 
in certain cases higher, since the war. I took 
my cycle along in the guard's van. . . . 

I'd like very much to have you read "Puck 
of Pook's Hill," or "Rewards and Fairies," or 
both, by Mr. Kipling. They are fine short 
stories, with incidental poems, of his Sussex, 
that he loves so well, put in the form of tales 
told two children, Dan and Una, living in Sus- 
sex, who, ciceroned by Puck, alias Robin 
Goodfellow, meet various people who in the 
past have lived their lives, and dealt with the 
problems of their day, in Sussex here, or else- 
where in England — all making toward a bet- 
ter knowledge and higher ideal for the children 
in their life for England. They are fascinat- 
ing things. One narrator is a Knight of the 
Conquest; another a Roman Centurion; a 
third a prehistoric Jutish god, turned man; a 
fourth Queen Bess; a fifth an early priest, St. 
Wilfrid; and so on. 

The children have a poem — 

**Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee 
Our love and toil in the years to he." 



106 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Una is Elsie Kipling, Dan is Second-Lieu- 
tenant John Kipling, missing since Loos, 1916. 
I think you would like them. 

"Trackway and Camp and City lost, 
Salt Marsh where now is com; 
Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, 
And so was England born!" 

I'm well, and all is O.K. Best wishes to 
everyone. I'll write again soon. 
Yours, 

A. A. S. 

Wainwright keenly appreciated Bairnsfath- 
er's cartoons, known as the Bystander's "Frag- 
ments from France." The first one he sent, 
on the sixteenth of July, was "The Tactless 
Teuton : a member of the Gravediggers' Corps 
joking with a private in the Orphans' Bat- 
talion, prior to a frontal attack." On August 
8 he sent his father "The Better 'Ole," with a 
postscript, "Is the rifle (short Lee-Enfield) 
like the on© you speak of? We use the same 
rifle." The same day he sent his brother 
"There goes our blinkin' parapet again." On 
this card he had written, "Learn and be wise!" 



/ 




A BAiRNSFATHER POST CARD — "Keeping His Hand In'' 

Private Smith, the company bomber, formerly "Shino," the popular juggler, fre- 
quently causes considerable anxiety to his platoon. 

(With the fennission of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons) 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 1107 
[Postcard to C. M. S.] 

Roffei/, Horsham 
8 Aug., 1917 

The spirit here is like that of the famous 
trench ditty: 

"The bells o' 'Ell go ting-a-ling-a-ling 
For you but not for me : 
For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling, 

And I their glory see, 
O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling, 

O Grave, thy victoree? 
The bells o' 'Ell go ting-a-ling-a-ling 
For you but not for me!" 

Yours, 

A. A. S. 

Roffetf Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
August 12, 1917 

Dear Louise: 

. . . It's fine about Wilder. I suppose if 
I were on your side the pond now I would be 
in the R.O.T.C. with Syd and your brother 
and the rest — or perhaps 'twould be a spell 
at Plattsburg again! Syd writes me a lot of 
the R.O.T.C, and it sounds great. All my 
friends are in something or other. I hope they 
will all go for the essentials, and not funk out 
in some "Third Auxiliary Substitute Reserve" 



108 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

unit. Speed and real service are the factors; 
now sought for from America; and when you 
see England and France and what they have 
done, you have to realise that America's help 
will count immensely, and that she cannot do 
too much. So that is why the Regular Army, 
the New Army, and the first-line Navy are 
what your recruits are most needed for. The 
Hun is pretty strong yet — only a fool could 
doubt that. . . . 

As ever, 
Yours, 
A. A. Stanley. 

6th Siege Section 
'10th Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A. 
Boffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
U August, 1917 

Dear Syd : 

To-day have I travailed long at menial 
labour — very sad, not? "Gunners' Mess" in- 
cludes many woes. Among them are — oiling 
stoves, sweeping floors, washing floors, wash- 
ing tables, washing dishes, washing pans, fir- 
ing stoves, drawing fires, peeling potatoes, 
cleaning stoves, filling boilers, washing win- 
dows, etceterarum. But enough. This sad 
fatigue comes but rarely. With luck I shall 
not have it again here. 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 109 

But a word on fatigues. We have many — 
Main Guard, Inlying Picquet, Town Picquet, 
Fire Picquet, Gunners' Mess, Sergeants' 
Mess, Officers' Mess, Hut Orderlies, Quarter- 
master's Squad, et al. They have varied duties 
and devoirs. They are mostly unpleasant, of 
course. A soldier will do with fair grace any- 
thing that comes on "parade" — that is re- 
garded as part of his work; but extras, wom- 
en's jobs and that sort of thing are received 
with defiant hostility. There is nothing like 
fatigues for giving you the "man's point of 
view." The tales of woe, adventures, com- 
plaints, grousing, schemes, religion, politics, 
and so on that are disbursed mutually on Main 
Guard, mess fatigues and the rest are amusing, 
sickening, depressing, disillusioning (if man 
still holds illusions about mankind) in the n\h 
degree. It is very true indeed that one half 
the world does not know how the other half 
lives. 

Plattsburg, when I thought I was learning 
a bit of life, was a kindergarten course only. 
I did not realise fully enough that the chaps 
there were largely of my own class. In the 
Canadian Forces, for example, unless you 
make up your mind to mix (which means go- 
ing their ways and living their life only too 



110 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

much), you are obliged to keep pretty well to 
yourself and certain few who drift toward 
you, and you toward them, by force of like 
aims and ideals. "Democracy" as a theory is 
all very well, but until we reach a Utopia of 
educated, sober-lived lower classes I cannot 
(for one) believe in it in entirety, or even in a 
large measure. Not yet. I hold to a class 
system of ability and ideals. If a man of low 
origin shows sterling qualities, well and good ; 
but if he is rotten and narrow-visioned and 
prejudiced toward the great things of life, I 
cannot meet him as equal and brother. Per- 
haps (and very likely) he wouldn't care to 
meet me, or to have me condescend to him. 
Well, I'll ring off. Education, though, is the 
possible salvation for democracy. People in 
power are recognising this more and more here 
in England, where war-democracy is gaining, 
and a more wide democracy for peace days is 
possible. Free education to the age of eighteen 
is coming. It seems peculiar that it wasn't 
here before, as it was in the States, but such 
is the case. Rudyard Kipling had only a pub- 
lic-school education (United Services College 
—"Westward Ho!") 

But enough: is this Armageddon bringing 
you to a "democratic" viewpoint? — for I do 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 111 

not think any of us — Ed, Lorry, Foxie — ^had 
it before. Have you read "The Three Things" 
of Mary Shipman Andrews? It is a war short 
story, a fine thing, by the way, wherein a young 
"patrician" comes to democracy, class frater- 
nisation and faith in the Deity — in Flanders. 
Perhaps it Vvdll come to me there. Eh hien^ 
c'est assezf 

For the best view of the War let me recom- 
mend to you, above all. Punch. It is great: I 
read it every day, nearly. The Sphere^, Illus- 
trated News, Graphic, and Tatler are also 
good ; aussi the Sketch, But Punch gets to the 
heart of things superbly. The entire staff of 
it should receive D.S.O.'s, or at least the Or- 
der of the British Empire, which Mr. Kipling 
is slated for very soon, he having refused an 
old one for many years, and the O.B.E. (I 
think 'tis written) was established only two 
months ago. . . . 

Best wishes to your people and everyone. 

Yours, 

Art. 



112 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

6th Siege Section, 
10th Can. Siege Bty., C,G.A. 
Itoffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
15 August, 1917 

Dear Gyles: 

... I am working for the big guns — 8-inch 
howitzers, you know, which I suppose you 
haven't yet in the U. S. It's husky business, 
rather, — ^but it is the branch of the Service 
that does the essentials out West. You will 
do well to get into it. How goes your end 
of things? 

Sussex and all England are great, my son. 
You probably did not see enough of it when 
you were here to appreciate it. I'm having a 
great time also — none better. 

We move from here next month, and prob- 
ably go overseas about November. But any 
letter to me here will follow on. . . . 
Yours as ever, 
343939 Stanley, Gunner, A. A. 

6th Siege Section 
10th Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A. 
Boffey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
17 August, 1917 

Dear Gyles: 

I have written you not long since, but to-day 
your letter of 22 July arrived — ^most interest- 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 113 

ing, too. There is much to speak of regarding 
it. 

The big guns, to begin with, are the only 
thing, you know. They do the work. The 3- 
inch you speak of would equal approximately 
the British 12-pounder, I suppose, which is no 
longer used at the Front. You will have to 
progress a bit, young man. We work on 6- 
inch, 30 hundredweight, now. We shall go 
over as 8-inch or 9.2's probably. 

In the Artillery of the British service there 
are three grades — Field, Heavy, and Garri- 
son, or Siege. The Field uses 12-pounders 
(obsolete), 15-pounders, and 18-pounders. 
The latter is a wonderful gun, used everywhere 
along the line, about equal to the famous 
French "75." The 15-pounder is obsolescent. 
The Heavies (fine guns, you know,) are the 
60-pounders (5 -inch bore, huge shell and car- 
tridge) mostly, and the 4.5 howitzers. The 5- 
inch low-power howitzer of Boer days has gone. 
The Siege comprise 6-inch and 8-inch howitz- 
ers, 9.2 gun, 10-inch, 12-inch, 15-inch, 18- 
inch. These last are massive naval guns that 
the Army does nothing with. The 6-inch how- 
itzer has a 100-pound shell. 

Our siege batteries are divided into six sub- 
sections, one gun to each sub., "A" to "F." 



114 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

The old batteries had four guns and four subs. 
The field guns are in four and six-gun bat- 
teries also, very few four-gun units being left. 
The Field (know that I know whereof I speak, 
having served nearly eight months in it) has 
a battery of 136 men and six officers (a four- 
gun battery), comprising major, captain, and 
four subalterns. The Siege is the same. The 
Field is horsed with three teams to a vehicle — 
the gun and limber, first-line wagon, second- 
line wagon. The Field gets its ammunition 
from the D.A.C. (divisional ammunition col- 
umn) . The Heavies are drawn by motor lor- 
ries — ^you call them "trucks" in the United 
States — ^in which the men ride. The Siege is 
drawn by "caterpillars," tractors built on the 
"tank" principle. We ride on the guns and 
caterpillars. 

You did well to join the Field though. It 
seems very queer to write merely "F.A." It 
should be "U.S.F.A.," like the British style, 
"KF.A., C.F.A., A.F.A., I.F.A., N.Z.F.A.," 
standing for Royal, Canadian, Australian, 
Indian, and New Zealand — Anzac. The 
cream of it is the K.F.A., of course — ^the 
"Hight of the British Line," the best army 
corps under heaven, barring the Coldstream 
and Grenadier Guards. 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 115 

The cavalry is coming in occasionally in 
Flanders, you know, in the new open fighting. 
Generally it waits in reserve, or acts on neces- 
sity as infantry, but in the early war they 
fought — ^the 6th Lancers at Messines, and all 
that. In the British Army they are called, 
you know. Lancers, Hussars, Dragoons, and 
Horse. So the 9th Lancers are the "Death or 
Glory Boys," having for a crest [sketch]. 
They've earned it, too. The pick of the cav- 
alry are the Household Brigade, of the King's 
bodyguard originally, the King's Life Guards, 
1st to 4th. 

The pick of the Infantry are the Foot 
Guards — Coldstream, Grenadier, Scotch, 
Irish, and Welsh (1915). The Coldstream 
dates from 1620 as a regular organisation; the 
Grenadiers from about 1700, but they were 
called "Gentlemen of the King's Foot 
Guards" till 1815, when, at Waterloo, they 
vanquished Napoleon's Imperial Old Guard, 
and earned the title of "Grenadiers." The 
Prussian Guards, the best German troops, 
date from Bony's time also, but they've been 
sadly knocked about in this thing. The Cold- 
stream Guards, alone almost, held the First 
Ypres battle, and were nearly decimated in 
doing it. The rest of "British Infantree" is 



116 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

composed of the Line regiments — "the Thin 
Red Line of heroes" at Waterloo — the 1st to 
the 109th Foot, beginning with the senior Brit- 
ish corps, the Royal Scots, 1600, and ending 
with the Leinster Fusileers, or the Prince of 
Wales' Royal Canadian Regiment, raised 
from the Canadian veterans of the Boer war, 
1900, I think. 

Here you have quite a bit about the British 
Army, but there is a lot more. It's a very old 
organisation, and a fine one. You may see 
that the States have a lot to learn in warfare 
when they come over. My father and an old 
Dartmouth instructor write me that a re- 
turned Canadian captain is drilling the Dart- 
mouth Battalion. The Harvard O.T.C., 
where I have several friends, is under wound- 
ed French officers. You need first-hand in- 
formation in this business. 

When I was in Canada, at Kingston, I 
drove mostly, wheel driver. Do you wear a 
leg-iron, for protection, on your off -foot? The 
Field wears spurs always, in camp, on guard, 
mounted, — gunners too, — and when walking 
out. I have five pairs of spurs in my kit-bag 
— issue variety, nickel dress-spurs, officer's 
nickel dress, your nickel-plate ones that I took 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 117 

to Plattsburg (remember?), and Mexican 
"dress." Would you like any? Do you wear 
spurs much, as officer, which I hope you are 
now? Does a private wear them? I used to 
eat, drink, sleep, ride, and walk in them, and 
it was queer changing over. No spurs are 
worn in the Siege. . . . 

Our gun drill goes like this: 







® 
® 



You have here a gun or howitzer. For six 
and eight-inch drill you have ten men. 
No. 1 is a sergeant, and supervises, checking 
the orders and sights. 

2 fires the gun by pulling lanyard. 

3 rams the shell, inserts cartridge, un- 

capping fuse first. 

4 sights the gun (the T-shaped thing on 

the left of breech). 

5 and 7 bring up the shell on a tray; 
5 rams with 3. 



118 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

6 brings up the cartridge, received from 

8. 
9 substitutes with 5 on shell-tray. 
10 substitutes for No. 1 in case of casual- 
ty, and issues fuses and shells to 5 
and 7. 
The gun crew of nine men and one N.C.O. 
forms up. (No, 10 is an N.C.O., also, in 
France. ) On command, ''For Gun Drill, tell 
offr they " 'shun" and number. Then comes, 
"Prepare for Actionr they double out and 
secure their tools, called "stores." A report 
of these is made, when they are correctly 
placed. Then they form up again. On com- 
mand, "Actionr from the officer they double 
to their places. (In reality Nos. 5 to 10 are 
much further back — about fifteen yards in rear 
of gun.) 

Officer gives the nature of shell out: "Am- 
mitol, fuse 106, lyddite, charge SI" for ex- 
ample, meaning that shell explosive is ammitol, 
fuse is No. 106, cartridge powder is lyddite, 
and cartridge charge 3. No. 1 repeats order 
to 5, 7, and 10, and salutes. . . . 

No. 1 gives "Loadr to 5, 7, and 10. They 
bring up shell, it is rammed home by 3 and 5, 
and shell-tray returned. No. 6 brings up car- 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 119 

tridge, shows it to 1, gives it to 3, who insert? 
it; 2 closes breech. . . . 

I hope you've been able to get a bit of an 
idea about our work. It's hard at times. Be- 
sides gun-drill, we dig gun-pits; gun-plat- 
forms; erect gyns (transportable derricks, 
man-power) ; and build shears to transport 
guns over unbridgeable rivers. Men swim 
across with ropes and poles, erect two braces 




'(B) with connecting cable (A), sling tackle 
and blocks ( C,C ) , attach gun at D, and by the 
men on ropes (M,M) gradually slackening on 
one side and drawing in on other, the gun is 
hitched across. We tie all manner of knots 
and lashings ; erect framework for camouflage, 
the concealing dirt-coloured matting strung 
over guns in exposed places; do semaphore 
signalling (I'm quite an expert) ; foot-drill; 
physical "jerks" ("P.T.") every morning; 
shell-ramming in dummy guns; do bath pa- 
rades, pay parades (rarely), and ordinary pa- 



120 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

rades (any set and appointed drill or exercise 
is called a "parade") — and so on. 

You haven't heard half our woes. Our 
routine follows: 

5:45 — Reveille. (No one hears it or gets 
up.) 

6:45— P.T. Parade (demmit!) till 7:30. 

7:30 — Breakfast. Clean up. 

8:45-12:30 — Morning Parade, with a break- 
off of fifteen minutes at 11. 

12 :30— Dinner. 

1 :45-4 :30 — Afternoon Parade. 

4:30 — Tea — our third and last meal. 

5:15-6:15 — Foot-drill, lecture, or route- 
march. 

6:15-10 — Free to go out, if not on fatigue 
or C.B. 

There you have it. The various drills come 
in hour or hour-and-a-half periods during 
morning and afternoon parade. Pay parade 
came a week ago. Voila! I drew <£2, to my 
joy. Yesterday, to my grief, I lost purse and 
all. But I've other funds. . . . 

We are in huts here — electric lights, spring 
cots with straw mattresses, etc. ; food at tables 
in the huts. The food is quite fair, but at a 
meal now and then rather scarce. 




RAMMING HOME A SHELL — Canadian Heavy Artillery 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 121 

All British forces wear puttees — not Fox, 
but issue. I had a pair of Fox's in Canada, 
«^ut traded them well. "Monarchs" I like bet- 
ter: you can get them all over Canada. The 
4ssue puttees are worn on parades, but we have 
dress ones to walk out. Fox's, and other 
makes, of course, all originated with the Brit- 
ish. The issue are cheaper cloth. The Infan- 
try, Flying Corps, and non-mounted corps 
wear them rolled up; the mounted men roll 
down, secured at the ankle. You should wear 
them that way — you must. To wear them 
rolled up in a mounted corps is a gross mis- 
take. You see, we wear them all the time, and 
if you are mounted and roll them up, they will 
quickly undo, so they're rolled down. We 
wear ours up, of course. 

We wear a leather bandolier for walking 
out, but the Siege should have waist leather 
belts, like infantry; also British "slacks," or 
khaki trousers, folded tight from the knee 
down, and "putteed," with the knee part 
turned down over the top of the puttee. But 
we still have our C.F.A. riding breeches, fine 
Bedford cord, reinforced with leather at knees 
for dress, and duck fatigue and drill pants. 
The Infantry (British) wear trousers. Only 
mounted troops wear tight breeches. . . . 



122 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Do you wear sticks ? A decent army should. 
Infantry wear swagger canes, or full-length 
canes ; Siege, full canes ; mounted corps, whips. 
You should carry a whip, but you can't get the 
right sort — and I forget, an officer should 
carry a cane in all services, except in the 
trenches, where you have a short trench stick, 
like a crop. I remember last year I and some 
other wise ones wore sticks, but most did not. 
It's part of the uniform, though, so do it. You 
can't find a better model than the British style 
for style. 

Then our salute. Volumes may be written 
on the subject. I'll describe it later. Also 
later: how I martinetted the Major, genu- 
flexioned the General, and sillified the subal- 
tern, or lopped the Leftenant — shall follow in 
an early issue. 'Twas a wonderful night ! . . . 
Yours, as ever, 

"The Kid." 

P.S. Nineteen now, you know! 

Rofey Camp, Horsham, Sussex 
18 August, 1917 

Dear Mrs. Claek: 

. . . Cheer o I This is the best panacea for 
gloom and blues that can be found: a British 
war-slang creation, it is on the lips of every 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 123 

one in this fair country, that is far harder tried 
than, probably, America ever could be called 
on to be. Let it be the motto of you dear peo- 
ple also, for I can see it, in fancy, form and 
spring gaily from your lips, in the worst cir- 
cumstances, as I've seen it here in England 
from Earl's Son and Clerk's Son ("Clark's" 
Son — ^tell Wilder of that!), from fine straight 
British lad and pure erect English girl, and 
their fathers and mothers following suit. In 
chorus, now— "CHEERO!" 

Awfully good news comes to me from every- 
body. Gyles sends from Plattsburg his plans 
and hopes of a Regular Army commission, or 
a Reserve one at second best; Sydney Stanley 
(my namesake) has finished his O.T.C. at the 
old College by now, Wilder too; Ed, from 
next door to you, has done his apprenticeship 
at Navy Reserve and Base Hospital, coming 
to the conclusion that he doesn't want to doc- 
tor, after all, but instead to enter the Harvard 
O.T.C, or something else, this fall; Foxie 
(Foxcroft) is in the Naval Reserve — ^why the 
Navy should attract so / don't see; Lauriat 
Lane is driving an American Ambulance in 
the Verdun sector; my Dartmouth friends are 
in the O.T.C. there, at Plattsburg, in the Reg- 
ulars, in the Navy ; a good friend of mine, Mr. 



124 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Stearns of the Dartmouth English Depart- 
ment, is O.C. of a company there. . . . 

You are absolutely right on the Y. M. C. A., 
or "Y," as we call them. Every camp in Eng- 
land and France has a Y in it — dispensing 
amusement, lectures, a wise leaven of religion 
which the men like, furnishing writing mate- 
rials free, refreshments at cheapest cost, and 
good books to read. You will do well in Amer- 
ica to follow the British lead in this. You 
know the Y originated in England. Every Y 
is under a Y. M. C. A. officer, volunteer civil- 
ian helpers, and the camp Padre, non-secta- 
rian. The Padre is the military chaplain, a 
captain or major usually. Hours are set for 
opening and closing; free concerts and the- 
atrical parties secured, and everything done 
to help the men that well can be. Ours here 
has a good gramophone with some fine rec- 
ords. . . . 

Shelley's birthplace is two miles west of 
here. I went there last week. This is the 
region which inspired his best poems of nature. 
I've heard what may be the descendants of the 
very skylark which he apostrophised so sub- 
limely. One can well appreciate his love of 
the wild things, the blue fleecy-clouded heav- 
ens, the May wind in the trees, and this fair 



WORKING WITH THE BIG GUNS 125 

green wood and hill and meadow-land that is 
England. Some earthly things have a bit of 
the immortal in them, have they not? This 
beautiful English countryside has pulsed with 
the best aspirations of countless men down the 
years. It is indeed a wonderful thing to know 
and feel. No one realises better than I the 
splendid chance I am having to be here in my 
youth, which does not return to one. 

I cannot thank you enough for the cheer you 
have given me, so I won't try, but you know 
it, still. Give my best wishes to all, Louise 
and Wilder and Mr. Clark and Miss Craw- 
ford, your very sunny sister! . . . 

Luck to every one ! and, till the next, 
Yours, as ever. 



CHAPTER VI 

AT "TIN TOWN," LYDD 

Doing Sentry Go — Camp Ditties — Cooden Camp — 
Pevensey — Application for a Commission — The Y. 
M. C. A.— Pay— Flag Worship— At the Target 
Eange — Camp Fare — ^An Air Raid on Dover 

Cooden Camp, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex 
26 August, 1917 

Deae Gyles: 

We arrived here two days ago from Hor- 
sham, and move on to Lydd the day after to- 
morrow. . . . 

But as to how I martinetted the Major, and 
so on. I was doing sentry go: it was ten 
o'clock and after. I had been challenging the 
privates who were entering, when suddenly 
there appeared, approaching me from within 
camp, a figure in a British warm. He was 
short and fat, and walked slowly. 
"'Alt! 'Oo goes there?" 
(Croak, pianissimo) : "Friend!" 
"Advance, friend, an'-be-recognised !" 
126 



AT "TIN TOWN," LYDD 127 

He advanced and stood glaring at me from 
the corner of his eye. I looked him all over, 
finally at the crown on his shoulder : often had 
he talked with me on sick parade when I want- 
ed a day's holiday. So, after some more de- 
liberation, I thought he could go through: 

"Pass, friend, all's well." 

"Ahem, very good; good night, sentry," said 
the old boy, and waddled on. One scalp to my 
credit. 

Shortly after, two figures approached the 

gate for leaving the camp. Far in the distance 

I halted them. 

« J f> 

(Calm low voice) : "Friend!" 

(Harsh roar) : "General officer!" 

"Advance, One, an'-be-recognised I" 

The fuming adjutant, who wished to leave 

at once, came up, and swore audibly. Smiling 

sweetly, I said: 

"Pass, friend. Advance, Two!" 

Up he came. Ye gods, it was the General! 

If he were displeased I might be clinked, court- 

martialled, D.C.M.'d, well-nigh shot. But 

never did a Stanley falter. 
"Show your rank, sir!" 
Obligingly did the much-moustached old boy 

extend a sleeve from his burberry (British 



128 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

trench raincoat) . Critically did I examine the 
Crossed Baton and Sword, the Crown, and 
the resplendent Star. Then: 

"Very good, sir. Pass, friend; all's well!" 

The dear old thing saluted, and passed on. 
I breathed well again. 

Much later, nearly midnight, when all ranks 
are supposed to be in bed, there came one 
from without — without bandolier, cap, or 
puttees. Very irregular: hence I am stern. 

"'Alt!" 



"Advance " 

He comes up and stands humbly before me. 
Ha-hum ! The guard room for you to report. 
But a sergeant need not report. Is he a ser- 
geant, though — shall I save him the bother? 
I feel for his stripes for identification. On his 
arm I grope and find none, high or low. Be- 
ing about to say "Beport to the Guard Room!" 
a mild voice assures me, "Feel up here." Won- 
deringly, with an awful feeling dawning on 
me, I run up his arm to his shoulder-strap. 
As an electric wire I feel — what? a Star! 
Sacr-re tonnerre, a Second-Lieutenant in His 
Majesty's Royal Artillery! Visions of crime 
and sentence come to me — Use majeste — ^paw- 
ing over an Imperial Officer! But I am re- 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 129 

solved to carry it off with e-clatt. I smartly 
spring to attention, while he cljuckles. 

"Very good, sir! Pass, friend; all's well!" 

He obligingly says, "Good night, sentry," 
and leaves me to a cold sweat and awful mirth ! 

The night's work was done. 

Last week, having spoken in justification of 
an accusation of faulty drill from "Sergeant 
Deah," I go to the clink. Next day I receive 
seven days C.B., from the Major. But I ap- 
peal to the Colonel. It goes through, and, 
though I got no remission of sentence, I have 
the satisfaction of seeing myself righted — of 
seeing the officer (our Lef tenant, Mr. Perry) 
receive an admonishment from Major and 
Colonel for his over-hasty action. Hence all 
is weU, and I am appeased. Such is the Army. 

You ask what we sing. Various ditties. 
But not much of fevered patriotic stuff. 
That's 'passe in England now. There's a bit 
too much of the real thing over here, to coun- 
terfeit it in song. But all this Spring the catch 
has been "Take me back to dear old Blighty." 

"Jack Dmm, son of a gun, over in France to-day 
Keeps fit, doing his bit, up to his eyes in clay. 
Each night, after a fight, to pass the time along, 
He's got a little gramophone that plays this song: 



130 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Chorus 
Tike me back to deah old BUght-y, 
Put me on the trine for Lunnon Tahji^'* etc. 

Cockney talk, you know. And: 

"Taffy's got his Jennie in Glamorgan, 
Sandy's got his Maggie in Dundee, 
While Michael O'Leary 
Thinks of his dearie 
Far across the Irish Sea; 
Billy's got his Lily up in Lunnon, — 
So the boys march on with smiles. 
For ev'ry Tommy's got a girl somewhere 
In the dear old British Isles !" 

But the old standby is this : 

**Private Perks is a funny little codger. 

With a smile, a funny smile. 
Five-foot none, he's an artful little dodger, 

With a smile — a sunny smile. 
Flush or broke, he'll have his Httle joke. 

He can't be suppressed. 
All the other fellows have to grin 

When he gets this off his chest — Hi! 

Chorus 
Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag 

And smile, smile, smile! 
While you've a lucifer to light your fag 

Smile, boys, that's the style ! 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 131 

What's the use of worrying? 

It never was worth while^ — So! 
Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag 
And smile, smile, smile!" 
Yours, 
No. 343939 Arthur A. Stanley, 
10th Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A. 

Cooden Camp, BexMll, Sussex 
26 August, 1917 

Dear Mr. Stearns : 

You shall hear of our coming hither, or rath- 
er of what has transpired since. We are at this 
camp for only three days more, whence we 
go to Lydd. 

A strong wind was blowing as our train 
came down from Lewes, through Polegate, and 
out over the Levels to Bexhill. We marched 
(I cycled) west then, for two miles straight 
back, as we had come to the end of the tram- 
line, then turned north up a hill to the camp 
on top. Imperials and Canadian Garrison 
Artillery are camped here. 

You go over the hill to the western side, and 
look out over the fair green Levels (as I did 
this morning) dotted with sheep and hay- 
stacks, winding "diks" between, with tree and 
hedge waving in the wind. Several miles out 



132 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

are the houses and grey castle of Pevensey. 
The Bay village lies at the left, by the white- 
capped Channel; and, closing the view, eternal 
old Beachy Head, with the light and Coast- 
guard station, making a little hump at the end, 
above the white chalk sea-cliff — and Bullock 
Down, Willingdon, Combe, the Long Man, 
and Windover Hill stretching back to the 
Levels side. The cloud shadows raced over 
the sunny green of it all, back inland to wood- 
ed Wealden uplands at Herstmonceux, Hail- 
sham, and Horse-Bridge. 

We bath-paraded to the beach yesterday 
morning, and had the opportunity of swim- 
ming in the foam-lashed Channel. I did not, 
feeling chilly, but went back to the railway 
line and watched the shepherds tending the 
flocks, and convalescent soldiers piling up big 
hay-waggons of good marsh grass. 

Yesterday afternoon I took bicycle back to 
Little Common hamlet, and straight west 
against the wind to the Level edge, where I 
turned for Pevensey. The wind came tearing 
in, making it a hard job, and the four miles 
took nearly half an hour. Pevensey came ever 
nearer, however, and at last I crossed Peven- 
sey Haven, now so narrowed, into the High 
Street. It is a pretty little place, lined with 



AT "TIN TOWN," LYDD 



133! 




Old 






PLAN OF PEVEN8EY CASTLE 



134! A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

old stone and cement houses, and trees, a mile 
and a half from the Bay. 

At the end of the street, on the left, stands 
the solid Roman wall, factum A.D. 300, with 
ihe Porta Pretoriana squarely fronting the 
road, which turns to the left and circles the 
wall at the right. The Mint House, residence 
of Andrew Borde, the Court Physician to 
Henry VIII, is on the right opposite. It is 
much be-signed and be-labelled, to excess in- 
deed. The fee is sixpence. Coinage is sup- 
posed to have been minted here in the Con- 
queror's time. 

I entered the Porta Pretoriana. The ground 
within is higher, grass-grown, with grazing cat- 
tle. At the left the Castle stands, ivy-grown 
and very beautiful over the Moat. The 
Roman walls are twelve feet thick, I should 
say, and thirty high. They were higher, but 
the land has risen. I walked around them, and 
climbed the Norman Watch Tower. A won- 
derful view is had over the Levels to Herst- 
monceux, Heathfield, Horse-Bridge, and 
Brightling, and Battle in the low hills at the 
right — ^which Puck and Sir Richard and de 
Aquila saw! At the west stands the huge 
Porta Decumana, into which Parnesius came, 
to Anderida as "Centurion of the XXX." So 




PEVENSEY CASTI.E 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 135 

around to the Castle again, with the massive 
ivy-grown portcullis and Eagle Tower — Tur- 
ris de Aquila — named from Gilbert and his 
sons. In the Northwest Tower were impris- 
oned Edward, Duke of York, Prince James 
!( James I of Scotland), and Queen Joan of 
INavarre. 

Within the Castle proper — the Norman 
work — you see the ruined keep, dungeons in 
the Northwest Tower, West Tower, sallyport, 
and the well, into which — 

"The Gold I gather 

• « • 

Like a shining Fish; 
Then it descends 
Into deep water," 

perhaps? Where Fulke hung in the tide- 
wash? 

Up on the West Tower you command the 
Levels over the walls, Pevensey Haven (now 
dried up), Pevensey Bay, and the Channel. 
From this the "Old Men" at Pevensey watched 
against Robert of Normandy. Here you see 
the stony beach of Pevensey Bay, and the mist- 
hung Channel, stretching over to Normandy 
— whence came the legions to build Anderida, 
Weland and his image, and, 28 September, 



136 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

1066, — as on the Bayeux tapestry recorded — 
HIC: WILLELM: DVX IN MAGNO: 
l^AVIGIO: MARE: TRAISTSIVIT ET 
VENIT AD PEVENES^. It was a great 
thing to see all this. I would like to tell you 
much more, but it will not shape well into 
words, and what boots it, when you're not 
here to see it for yourself — which is the main 
thing? I'm better and happier for having seen 
all that yesterday, though. 

Returning to camp I rode, with the wind, 
north to Herstmonceux, and saw the old brick 
castle. Nothing like Pevensey, though. We 
leave here Tuesday for Lydd, whence I will 
write you more, with my new address — don't 
use this one. 

Yours, 
Aet. a. Stanley, 
No. 343939. 

10th Canadian Siege Battery, C.G.A. 
"Tin Town" Lydd, Romney Marsh, Kent 
28 August, 1917 

Deah Father: 

It has been beastly weather for the past 
three daj^s, raining great guns and blowing up 
a gale out of Brittany and Bay o' Biscay O! 
that has knocked down trees, apples, crops, 
inter alia. But to-night it has cleared a bit. 



AT "TIN town;' LYDD 137 

and as I walked back from Lydd village the 
moon was shining brightly, about half-full, and 
the light fleece nimbus harriers were racing up 
off the Channel and running shadows across 
the blowing, waving marsh grass into Kent. 
The sand blew up in gusts now and then, and 
Dungeness Light, at the end of the low point 
that juts into the choppy Channel, was dark 
and black in the moon. 

We left Horsham Friday last (the 24th), 
having finished our term of gun-drill and pre- 
liminary work. We weren't sorry to go, for a 
change was welcome enough after the rather 
arduous routine, and every week completed is 
a week nearer France. 

We went by train (my bicycle in the goods 
van) south to Lewes and east to Polegate, over 
Pevensey Levels to Bexhill, five miles west of 
Hastings. We stayed there till this morning, 
with windy weather all through, and rain from 
Sunday afternoon on. We were in fair quar- 
ters, at Cooden Camp, nearly two miles west 
of the town, with other Imperial batteries wait- 
ing for a turn of shooting at Lydd, which is 
quite taxed at present to find room for the 
shoots of all the siege batteries of the British 
forces which come here if they drill in Eng- 
land, sooner or later, generally just before 



138 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

proceeding overseas. "Lyddite" was origi- 
nated in this camp. . . . 

I have sent to Mr. Lane in this mail an ap- 
pHcation for my commission as an Imperial 
officer, in the Hoyal Garrison Artillery, prob- 
ably. The paper has two certificates, of good 
moral character for four years past, and of 
entrance-to-college education, which a respon- 
sible person and teacher must sign. The col- 
lege head is not required, and Mr. Lane is a 
professor at Tufts. You couldn't sign for me, 
for obvious reasons, and as being an "inter- 
ested person." It is only a matter of form, 
and the Army does not care a hang as long as 
it has the blanks filled, and never asks ques- 
tions about it. I've seen lots of cases where 
incogs, are never disturbed in the Army: 'tis 
a most apathetic organisation. I cannot get 
the appointment till I am in France, when I 
shall apply for recommendation by my O.C., 
and then be posted to an O.T.C. — Officers' 
Training Corps. I am asking him to return it 
as soon as possible, as I need it as soon as may 
be. 

If I can be recommended, I shall surely be 
in luck. I have always wanted it, of course. 
Yours truly, 

Arthur. 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 139 

Soldiers' Institute, Lydd Camp 
Lydd, Kent 

31 August, 1917 

Deae Father : 

This afternoon, after a hot few hours' work 
on the ranges, I came back to camp to find 
your three very welcome letters. . . . Two of 
your letters were "opened by censorj" but 
nothing touched. . . . 

This camp is on the barren shingle "ness," 
with little attraction except what is found in 
the recreation "huts." These are of various 
sorts, being maintained by the Church of Eng- 
land, Wesleyans, Hegimental Institute, and 
Y.M.C.A. They all have a coffee bar, with 
refreshments, canned goods, hot drinks, et 
cetera, a billiard and ping-pong room, a li- 
brary, and a writing room, with often a prayer 
room added. They afford decent amusement 
and occupation to numberless men, without 
friends in a strange neighbourhood or coun- 
try, who otherwise would be obliged to loaf 
about the barrack room, the streets, or the pub- 
lic houses. Most of my letters are written in 
some hut or other. The Y.M.C.A. does per- 
haps the most extensive and best work, and if 
you ever contemplate some contribution, and 
are uncertain as to who should receive it, the 



140 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Y.M.C.A. Recreation Hut Fund is, I can as- 
sure you, a very deserving recipient.* There 
is a Y.M.C.A. hut in practically every camp 
in England, and they are everywhere behind 
the lines at the Front, all being staffed by un- 
paid volunteer workers, who do their bit as 
nobly as any nurse or fighting man. . . . 

The money order is in good season, and I 
thank you very much for it. It will be of great 
assistance in enabling me to see more than I 
could otherwise. We are not badly off, 
though. We receive $18 of Canadian pay 
here a month, which is paid semi-monthly in 
varying amounts, sometimes 10s., £l, =£1, 10s., 
or £2 — occasionally as much as <£3. If we are 
given a large amount once, the following pay- 
day will often produce only 10s. It is a very 
uneven, and rather unsatisfactory system, or 
rather "plan," for there is no system to it. 
Through some caprice of the paymaster a man 
may receive several large amounts running, 
however, as ^3, <£2, 10s. and £2 — thus over- 
drawing his wage for a month and a half con- 
siderably, and often resulting in placing him 
in debt. In France, or on fighting service any- 

* Wainwright Merrill's arrears of army paj'', three instal- 
ments of whicli were received after his death, were sent by 
his father to the Maritime Division of the Canadian Y.M.C.A. 
for its work among Canadian soldiers overseas. 



AT "TIN TOWN," LYDD 141 

where, the Canadians receive about fivepence 
a day, I beheve. The balance is put to their 
credit in England, and may be drawn when 
returned convalescent, or on leave. 

The Imperials (British Regulars) draw, in 
general, supposedly a shilling a day; but cer- 
tain married soldiers are compelled to allot 
sixpence of this to their wives, and part of the 
remaining sixpence is "stopped" for barrack 
damages, etc., with the result that many draw 
only half-a-crown and less a week, month in 
and month out. Certain branches of the serv- 
ice are better paid. The Royal Flying Corps 
privates (2d mechanics) get two shillings, 1st 
mechanics three shillings, while "labourer" 
privates have but the "shilling a day." There 
is considerable discontent, and agitation to 
raise the pay, which will probably bear fruit 
by giving the infantry private a shilling "clear" 
of all stoppages. Even then it is mighty lit- 
tle, of course. Conscripts draw even less than 
the volunteers' imaginary shilling. 

America always is strong for flags, isn't it? 
You see the flag everywhere — they even pa- 
rade it too much in the Army. I think it has 
the tendency to make it a bit common. In 
England or Canada one seldom sees the Union 
Jack. The first one I ever saw in the Army 



142 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

was on the staff at the gate at Horsham. But 
for all that, the flag means much more to a 
Briton than the undemonstrative Briton will 
tell you, and they think of it, when they do at 
all, in a much finer way than most Americans, 
I think. 

In the cinema ("movies") at the end of a 
news-weekly film there regularly appears a 
"flash" of the British Jack on a short pole, 
over the world, flapping boldly. The specta- 
tors do not clap, but you see here and there a 
glint of the eye and a faint smile, that speak 
volumes. Then at the end, of course, the 
King's photograph is thrown on, and the mu- 
sic plays the anthem, while the whole house 
stands at attention, soldiers and civilians too. 
Georgie may be but a figure-head, but he's a 
mighty fine one, and I vote for him! I wish, 
as a bit of a favour to me, that you would keep 
that silk Jack you speak of — on your room 
wall perhaps. It was one I rather valued, and 
I'd like to think that you have it safely. . . . 

On the range to-day the 15 -pounders, 6-inchr 
and 8-inch were lopping over some battery 
fire, then some good salvo work, and a trench 
bombardment. I was detailed to the job of 
filling shell-holes. We went down on the lit- 
tle camp railway, run by the Royal Engineers, 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 143 

to the S.P. (signalling point), about three 
miles from the guns, and watched. The tar- 
gets were stretched away from us in line, the 
nearest at 100 or 150 yards. 

In "battery fire" we would hear the dull 
boom, then an interval of a few seconds. Boom! 
and a heap of shingle and sand would fly up, 
well over to the left. Ten seconds later a 
second would follow; then the third, getting 
nearer — a "dud" (unexploded) that time; the 
fourth, the fifth — you can hear the whistle 
plainly now; the sixth boom — ^that's ours — 
"Wh-e-e-e-e-e-E-E-JS;!" Almost overhead it 
seems. Boom ! Not ten rods off in the shingle 
the spurt goes up, and a pebble glances off the 
rock near us. "Sometimes it's lead instead," 
said the sergeant, and we wisely moved into 
the "splinter-proof." It's a peculiar sensation, 
being under fire. You hear the filthy thing 
whistling, low, then louder and louder, and 
your impulse, invariably, is to avoid it some- 
how. Some men bend the head, others want 
to throw themselves flat, others turn and 
"double." But, of course, except for the very 
improbable combination of lower charge than 
usual and "5' right" incorrectly put on the 
sight, we were in no danger. 



144 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Salvo fire is a bit impressive. Six barking 
booms come at once, and one long whistle, that 
is yet six distinct whistles, comes down toward 
you, louder, louder — then six bursts of earth 
and stones start up at once, hanging in the air, 
slowly sinking, with a heavy roar of the H.E. 
(high explosive) distributing the shrapnel. 
Afterward we filled in the holes. The shells 
burst into all sorts of shapes. I picked up 
bits, and dug some undischarged shrapnel out 
of their rosin bed in a rusty "dud," A day's 
rain rusts all this iron. 

In my last letter I wrote of my application 
for a commission, which I sent to Mr. Lane. 
I hope he will sign it as soon as he can, and get 
it back to me. I stand quite a fair show of 
getting my O.C.'s recommendation, when we 
are a short time in France, for return to Eng- 
land to an O.T.C. unit. Then, after a couple 
of months, if all goes well, I shall be an officer 
in the Regular Army — subaltern (Second- 
Lieutenant), of course. Think of all the 
bother I'll have in returning privates' salutes! 
But it will be not so bad, though, will it? I'm 
pretty well "fed up" with certain things one 
meets in the ranks. Of course all this depends 
on my O.C.'s recommending me. Still, my 
chance is pretty good, I think. Tell Gyles I 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 145 

may not be far behind him! Of course one 
does have a much decenter time wearing a 
"Sam Browne" and stars. The men are of 
your own class, largely, and a fine clean lot on 
the whole — and I've seen no few officers in my 
nine months' service. 

We shall not have leave for three weeks or 
so now, I'm afraid. There are some chances 
of getting ten days. It will probably come 
just before we go over, which will be in five 
weeks' time, under normal conditions. 

I'll write more soon. Write me whenever 
you have time — and congratulate Gyles for 
me! My best wishes to all. 

Yours sincerely, 

Arthur. 

Tin Town, Lydd Camp, Lydd, Kent 
4 September, 1917 

Dear Louise: 

. . . There are three divisions to this camp, 
scattered about on the marsh. They are named 
"Tin Town" (sandy), "Wood Town" (san- 
dier), "Brick Town" (sandiest). We Cana- 
dians (10th and 12th Batteries) and two Im- 
perial batteries inhabit Tin Town. Imperial 
batteries are entirely filling Wood Town. 
Brick Town has the 12th Canadians, some 



146 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Imperials, and others. The town of Lydd, 
though of only three thousand people, and less 
since the war, has a mayor, council, and bor- 
ough organisation. It winds along two streets 
a little to the north of camp, has two cinemas 
("movies" in the U.S.), some few shops, and 
a great number of public houses ("saloons") 
and sheep. . . . 

To-day I am a housemaid — ahem! — I should 
say butler J likewise man-of- all- work (very 
little of which I have done). My duties, in 
company with another blighter, are to fetch 
and distribute the food to the men when they 
are back from parade, to sweep the hut, wash 
dishes and tables, fetch coal for the mess- 
house, and so on. Most of that comes from 
7:30 to 10 in the morning; afternoon and eve- 
ning are largely our own. At this camp four, 
and occasionally five, meals a day are "served," 
in true British style, but part of them are, it 
is true, quite meagre. Voila: 

Early breakfast — Tea. 

Breakfast — Porridge, beef ( "bully" )^ or 
bacon, tea, bread and margarine. 

Dinner — Beef or mutton or stew, potatoes, 
dessert. 

Tea — Bread, margarine, tea, cheese. 

Supper — Tea and bread. 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 147 

No true Britisher can ever do without his 
tea. At times I imbibe tea eight times daily: 
at four Army meals; at lunch, 10 a.m., at the 
Y.M.C.A.; lunch, 3 p.m., at Wesleyan Sol- 
diers' Home; lunch, 7 p.m., at another home; 
lunch, 9 p.m., somewhere else. Oh, do we eat? 
It is really shameless. All our pay goes into 
tea, buns, sweets ("candy" in U.S.) and — 
ahem! — beer. But the latter ever so rarely for 
me. But you know, Louise, English beer is 
not as other beers, being much more a gift of 
the gods. 

Sweets are becoming awfully hard to se- 
cure. Chocolate of any sort is nearly impos- 
sible to get. Toffee is very rare. All that is 
left is hard acid drops and such child's fare. 
But — I've not thanked you yet for your never- 
to-be-forgotten box! It came at a most sad 
and depressing time, when I was about to go 
up to my O.C. (for a false peccadillo, that 
didn't happen at all), and the wonders therein 
were as manna to the Israelities. But seri- 
ously — thanks awfully, Louise. If I had 
needed any further proof of your cooking 
ability, it was then and there conclusively dem- 
onstrated to me. The package arrived in good 
condition : the mails do not get very hard treat- 
ment, to all appearances. . . . Well, look at 



148 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

me! talking for half an hour about my blessed 
self, of course ! But how are all you people in 
Cantabrigia town? I hear from several of you, 
but it is quite long between letters, owing to 
the curtailed steamer service. . . . 

There was an air-raid on Dover again last 
night. We could see the anti-aircraft fire 
plainly, twenty-five miles off as it is. There 
was a full moon, almost, and everything was 
very brilliant. Later, while the chaps in our 
hut were waiting for midnight, to go out on 
a digging scheme for the guns, and were play- 
ing cards with the lights lit, "Sergeant dear" 
suddenly ran in and gave the word, '^Lights 
Out!" Then there became more and more 
audible a grinding, pulsing humming. At the 
windows we looked up into the stars and 
moonlight, while Fritz came over, his battle- 
planes very high up, speeding back home by 
the ]&taples-Boulogne route. Nothing was 
dropped, and ten minutes later the men went 
out to dig, while I, as hut orderly, turned in 
to the sleep of the weary. I went through 
Fritz's hot show at Folkestone, which you may 
have read of in the papers. I missed mine by 
thirty yards that evening. Very interesting, 
and mildly exciting, it was, 'pon my word. 



AT "TIN TOWN/' LYDD 149 

I must cease this for now, Louise, as "din- 
ner up" is about to be yelled, and that means 
work — a little, anyway. . . . 

Yours, as ever, 

Arthue a. Stanley. 

"Tin Town," Lydd, Kent 
10th Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A. 
6th Siege Bty. Section 
5 September, 1917 

Dear C. M. S.: 

Coming here from Bexhill a week and a half 
ago, we passed Winchelsea and Rye on their 
walled hills in Rother Levels, peaceful and 
very old in the sunlight — Rye with its red tile 
roofs, Winchelsea shrouded by elms — the 
Roman road leading to both crossing Rother, 
Tillingham, and Brede. The look of them in 
the blue and white setting of sky, the white 
ribbon of road leading straight thither, reminds 
me strongly of Parrish's fine drawings — the 
"Dinkey Bird" magic, and the "Roman Road" 
drawing (from Kenneth Grahame), striking 
in its likeness. 

We leave here for mobilisation, and France, 
within a month. But in a sense I am like 
Parnesius of the "XXX Ulpia Victrix"— "a 
probationer waiting for a cohort." An the 
Fates be kind, I return ere long to England 



150 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

for a British subaltern's commission — R.G.A., 
or, maybe. Lancers. 

But I have not heard from you for a long 
time. I hope you will not forget me. 
Yours, as ever, 

Arthue a. Stanley, 
No. 343939. 

P.S.: — Luck to your coming year — ^will it 
be in Hanover? 



CHAPTER VII 

THROUGH LONDON TO CX)DFORD 

A Rest-Camp in Wiltshire — Glimpses of London: Char- 
ing Cross, the Strand, Trafalgar Square — Types in 
Camp — ^A Walk to Stonehenge — America's Part in 
the War: "Don't Drivel and Sentimentalise" 

lOth Canadians, C.G.A. 
Camp No. 15, Codford, Wilts 
September 20, 1917 

Deab Mr. Stearns— "C. M. S.": 

I write this on the slope of a windy, muddy 
down that flanks Salisbury Plain on the south- 
west; fifteen miles southeast lies Salisbury, 
in Avon valley — not the same Avon of War- 
wicks and the Bard, but none the less a pretty 
one. Stonehenge is, accordingly, perhaps ten 
miles east. 

We came here yesterday from Paddington 
(and Lydd) by a slow afternoon train on the 
G.W.'s Bath line— by Eton, Reading, New- 
bury, Devizes — then south, ten miles out of 
Bath, through western Wiltshire, Trowbridge, 
Heytesbury — ^to this rest-camp that shelters 

151 



152 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

— , — , — , and — ; Anzac, Australian, Impe- 
rial, and now Canadian. The Canadians 
tramped the ooze of the Plains in the winter 
of '14-15, and now again: 

"Gorblimy, Alf, the bloody Canadians is 
'ere!" 

And now to return to yesterday. Out of the 
windy drizzling Marsh we came on the little 
branch line to Appledore and Ashford, then 
turning westerly into the fair green hop -fields, 
well-manned by the journeying coster-folk and 
ruddy "N.S." girls in brown smock, jackboots 
and khaki riding breeches. "Cheerio!" they 
waved from the fields, for we, leaning from 
the carriages, stood for returned men, and all 
England knows and sympathises with the 
jBack to Blighty ecstasy. 

At Tonbridge we went north, into the long 
Sevenoaks tunnel — then Orpington, Bromley 
— ever faster. Then the streets and houses 
began — streets, chimney pots, spires, and 
smoke — everywhere to both horizons: and we 
journeyed so for seeming ages — New Cross 
passed — slowing now: more churches, grey 
stone everywhere: Waterloo Junction halted 
us a time, then on again! We had traversed, 
unknowing, Bermondsey's fetid alleys, the 
Borough High Street (the "George," "Tab- 



THROUGH LONDON TO CODFORD 153 

ard," Guy's Hospital, Lant Street of the im- 
mortal "Papers"!), Blackfriars Koad. Now 
over Waterloo Road! — ah, God! what would 
it be like? A hasty arrangement of impres- 
sions flashed through my mind, chasing each 
other out, hazy, indistinct; the carriage seemed 
to crawl at snail's pace. The majestic River 
I pictured on the retina of my brain — "Be- 
tween Southwark Bridge that is of iron, and 
London Bridge of stone" jumped over my 
ideas, out of "Mutual Friend," why, I cannot 
say. It would be wonderful, I decided, hav- 
ing ceased trying to order it up for my senses 
— I had allowed too little time to think it 
over. Then, slowly gliding, we slid upon the 
end of Charing + Bridge. 

There it was! A maelstrom coursed up, 
changing all my preconceptions — the River! 
So narrow, was my thought — a stone's throw 
seemed it to Waterloo Bridge. How dwarfed 
the stream seemed from this height! Then 
quickly I picked out objects: "Hotel Cecil" 
fronted squarely, dark grey and black. The 
sun had struggled through, and it was glori- 
ous. The Savoy next it, of course: the long 
green embankment — and the trams moving up 
and down. I flashed my eyes upstream, and 
caught the Houses, the War Office turrets. 



154 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Then it blotted out, and back I searched. 
Metropole there, tall on the left. A glance 
down Northumberland Avenue, a final endur- 
ing impression of square, massive, grey build- 
ings, firm bridges, green trees, and the dirty- 
dear old River — this, the centre of "this be- 
hemoth, this leviathan monster London!" 

We slithered neatly into the yards; then 
overhead we saw the opaque glass of the Sta- 
tion: porters, girls mostly, bustling about — 
luggage, and some non-khaki people. We 
alighted at once: formed up, and marched on 
to the main hall. "At Charing Cross or Port 
Said you will meet every one in this wide world 
if you wait long enough!" (Kipling, wasn't 
it ? ) Then out towards the street : khaki every- 
where, all manner of it; the little red, green, 
and black divisional cards on the sleeves; 
the jacketed, squatty little Enfields on kit- 
loaded, muddied shoulders; caps askew; and 
the dull brown of the tin-hats strapped to the 
back! Blighty, for them! after aeons of as- 
sorted hell. But the predominating note to 
me was "Cheero!" "Light a fag!" "To-mor- 
row we'll bash Bill Kaiser!" And into that 
world-renowned highway we swung, whistling 
as in happy times of yester-year: 



THROUGH LONDON TO CODFORD 155 

"Up to mighty Lunnon came an Irishman one day; 
There the streets was paved with gold and everyone 
was gay — " 

and to complete it — ^here, the trams, 'buses, 
taxis, hurrying civilians, and khaki, always 
khaki — the Strand! 

My eyes darted right — the Adelphi, yes, 
far down ; behind it I knew were Covent Gar- 
den, Maiden Lane, and old Drury. Board- 
ings, significantly new, covered corners of two 
buildings : the Hun had come to "mighty Lon- 
don" — not long since — but that thought was 
chased gaily away by our wheeling left of 
course. The Grand ahead, high and dark! 
Then, behind a big 'bus, a lion couchant, black- 
grey ! Whistling and swaying we went ; people 
laughing; a kid messenger's pill-box oscillating 
as he chewed something; "Canidians, wot 'o!": 
then I felt the imposing triumphal arch of the 
New Admiralty over against me, tall, square, 
and grey — the Mall beyond, yes — and we 
swung into the Square. 

Nelson has a high, bold warder — ^well, 
Trafalgar! — ^he saved England jolly well 
enough! The National Gallery shuts the 
northern view. Ah, there to the left, a flash 
of Whitehall ! And opposite, Cockspur Street 



156 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

leads to Pall Mall. St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, 
this would be — Brimstone Corner and Fan- 
euil Hall in one, but three thousand miles! 
Khaki, people, people, dogs, bicycles, an ad- 
miral, tall constables, — and we plunge into 
Bakerloo Tube entrance. Two flights down, 
a lift, down again ! A Paddington train soon 
rolls in; and by Piccadilly Circus halt I have 
re-assembled my vagrant fancies a little. Yes, 
it was wonderful, and sad, and' gay — London 
is all that. It all was passed and indelibly 
recorded in five minutes — ^that I shall not soon 
forget. 

Here we remain for two weeks, resting ; then 
over. I hope I may hear from you some time, 
my friend, with news of all that other matter, 
the Republic of the West — now leaguing with 
Albion, the which — Albion — is the fairest, 
dearest land under heaven, my friend. 
Cheerio ! 

With best wishes and good luck. 
Yours, as ever, 

Arthur A. Stanley, 
No. 343939. 



THROUGH LONDON TO CODFORD 157 

Camp No. 15, Codford, Wilts 
^ „ September 20, 1917 

Deae Syd: 

. . . The types here! Everything and 
everyone from all over this little world. In 
the Congregational Home last night, at the 
coffee bar I was getting tea and buns, when 
a Padre standing next me spoke. We got to 
talking. He was an Imperial black-crossed 
chaplain. Then, "a Canadian!" he ejaculates, 
and it developed I was practically the first he 
had met since Ypres '15-16. He worked there 
at sky-piloting with them and the Imperials 
also. He spoke English with a peculiar ac- 
cent, and, as he informed me, hailed from New 
Guinea — a missionary, I suppose. 

Another: a ship-owner, private of Austra- 
lian Infantry, born in Glasgow, raised in Liv- 
erpool and Birkenhead, emigrated to Canada, 
lived in 'Frisco, in the Klondike in '98, sailed 
to East and West Africa, a certificated pilot 
on the Irawaddy "from Kangoon to Manda- 
lay," retired to ship-lading in Sydney, for- 
merly Sergeant-Major in Australians, relin- 
quished it for R.N. commission which failed: 
preferably would live in Burmah. And the 
hosts of others. Verily, verily, this earth holds 
all sorts and conditions of men. . . . 

Yours, as ever, Aet. 



158 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 



6th Siege Section 
loth Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A, 
Codford, Wilts 
September 26, 1917 

Dear Father: 

We continue to "rest" here. I am reading 
"Pendennis" and "Barnaby Rudge." We 
arise at 7:30, breakfast; parade, usually for 
only half-an-hour, at 8:30; dinner, 12:30; pa- 
rade, 2 p.m. (usually omitted) ; tea, 5 p.m. 
This afternoon the men played the officers at 
baseball, and all the Imperials turned out to 
watch the hloomin' gime. "It's not cricket, 
you know !" I played left field, and was struck 
out by a lanky lieutenant. 

Last Sunday another chap (Land Office, 
Ottawa) and I walked over the rolling green 
Plain on a Roman road, past the ancient Brit- 
ish earthwork, Yadbury Castle, through Win- 
terbourne Stoke, to Stonehenge. Quite a lit- 
tle sight, indeed. It is most imposing when 
you are within it. The equinox had just 
passed, and the sun must have risen nearly due 
east, over one of the stones without, that gauge 
the seasonal movement of the sun. There was 
quite a crowd there — ^Anzacs, Australians, 
civilians, and a U.S. medical officer, appar- 
ently a Hebrew. Soldiers were admitted for 



THROUGH LONDON TO CODFORD 159 

threepence, but common people were taxed a 
shilling. Later we walked into Amesbury, 
and had a very good supper at the New Inn. 
We walked back in the evening by moonlight. 
We covered twenty-five or thirty miles that 
day. 

I go on my much-deferred leave in two or 
three days. I probably go via Salisbury — a 
chance to see the Cathedral, — Reading, to 
Paddington, then out of it to Stratford, stop- 
ping a time in Oxford on return, and three 
days in London. I may stay at the "Ameri- 
can Eagle" Hut, for soldiers, Aldwych, Strand 
— ^where I can get some of that nectar called 
ice-cream soda. 

It is wet to-day, and the little village fully 
justifies its name — nom de guerre — "Codford- 
in-the-Mud." There are good roads, though, 
as everywhere in England. . . . 

Yours, as ever, 

Arthur. 

6th Siege Section 
10th Can. Siege Bty., C.G.A. 
Codford, Wilts 
September 26, 1917 

Dear Francis: 

... I was mightily interested in your clip- 
pings. "Massachusetts does not realise fully, 



160 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

completely, that this nation is at war!" Oh, 
journalist bombastic, you are right. I'll tell 
you, in a whisper, England only learned that 
she was at war May 25 last — after three years : 
after Folkestone. And your States, O scrib' 
bier, should learn it in four months, or five! 
And that "A sobbing kiss, a tightening of the 
arms, tears alike of" — brave warrior and heroic 
lass, probably. Rotten form, you know — ^be- 
fore they even smell training camp mud. Here 
in England, across her narrow seas from 
Flanders, in raid and desolation and death — 
that I have seen, — I have never yet beheld a 
woman weep, only that nursing mother in 
Folkestone accursed, with her breasts torn off, 
moaning. The best thing for America, always 
hysterical and loving show of hackneyed emo- 
tions, is to follow the example of Britain's 
tight-lipped unconcern in hundred-fold worse 
adversity. Don't drivel and sentioientalise : 
besides being childish, it doesn't beat the Hun. 
I hope I've not said too much; but, Francis, 
I have so much admiration for the way this 
England of ours is carrying on, that I'm a bit 
intolerant, perhaps. America will learn — ^the 
pity that she will have to! — but Fritz can't 
win, you know! We're going over in a few 



THROUGH LONDON TO CODFORD l6l 

weeks to attend to that, or do our bit, any- 
how! . . . 

When the address is "France," I'll let you 
know. Confidentially, it may be "Italy" or 
"Palestine," but that is as we shall see. 

.Yours, as ever, 

Arthue. 



CHAPTER VIII 

OXFORD IN WAR TIME 

A Morning at Stratford — The Harvard House — The 
Shakespeare Tercentenary Programme of the Cele- 
bration at Ruhleben — An Afternoon at Oxford — 
Balliol's Five Sheets of Names in the Lodge Entry: 
PRATER, AVE ATQUE VALE 

Harris's Hotel, George Street, Oxford 
September 29, 1917 
11:30 p. m. 

Dear CM. S.: 

This morning very early I alighted in the 
cold in Stratford-upon-Avon. Finding no 
shelter at the ungodly hour of five, I repaired 
to the Great- Western station, and slept two 
hours in a first-class compartment on the sid- 
ing. Later I sallied forth. 

I breakfasted next Washington Irving's 
inn, the "Red Horse"; visited the buildings in 
Chapel and Church Streets; Holy Trinity 
Church, the tomb by the altar, the God's-acre, 
and the still Avon, with the Memorial stand- 
ing as testimony. Everything in Stratford 

162 



OXFORD IN WAR TIME 163 

breathes Shakespeare, is Shakespeare: Guild- 
hall, Chapel, Church, Memorial, Birthplace, 
and shops. 

It was very peaceful this morning. I went 
into the Harvard House then, and at the con- 
cierge's tender of the sixpenny ticket, I in- 
formed her that I entered free there — ^where- 
upon she gladly showed me the handsome old 
house. She fetched the visitors' book, with the 
dear old seal on it, and I signed— the book of 
Harvard men who have visited that place, the 
home of John Harvard's mother, Katherine 
Rogers, who married Robert Harvard of 
Southwark. The book begins with Whitelaw 
Reid's autograph, and contains a fine list of 
representative Harvard men — Bliss Perry, 
"A. Lawrence Lowell," Henry Hildebrand, 
C. Hidden Page, Herbert M. Sears (Boston) , 
F. W. Taussig, Bancroft (Boston), Albert 
Bushnell Hart, the Roosevelts, '62 to '19, the 
senior W. T. Brigham, the junior, and — ^your 
obedient humble. On nearly every page stood 
the name of some man I knew, had been taught 
by, or "representative" Harvard man. It was 
a bit of a link with the old college, wasn't it? 

I visited the Birthplace, and was guided by 
the woman-in-charge, who explained exhaust- 
ively. With me were a small party of that 



164. A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

peculiar genus, Anglaise contineniale : a mid- 
dle-aged woman, a nice old French lady with 
an exquisite accent, tliree boarding-school 
misses of varying age. They all spoke French 
and German proficiently, by turns. The first- 
named a month ago lived interned in Weimar, 
had visited Florence two weeks ago, and now 
was at Stratford, as she said with a faint smile 
of pride, at knowing the locales of the three 
Immortals' homes, ( The oldest and rather at- 
tractive miss spoke animated French with the 
old lady, and in the gaps laughing German 
with me.) 

It was all very interesting and informative 
at the Birthplace, and the Birth-Room has a 
bit of a charm, in spite of the doubtful au- 
thenticity of some of it. But I gleaned one 
thing of gold from the hodge-podge of theory 
and conjecture: on the wall is framed one of 
the very few extant copies of the Shakespeare 
Tercentenary programme of the celebration at 
Jluhleben, by the British interned: 

*'Shall it for shame be spoken in these days. 
Or fill up chronicles in time to come, 
That men of jour nobility and power . . .*' 

Henry IV, Part L 



OXFORD IN WAR TIME 165 

*'This festival is offered to the subjects of the British 
Empire interned at Ruhleben, as a Tercentenary 
commemoration that cannot he without special 
significance to all who reverence the ideals that 
spring from English soil and live in the English 
tongue." 

A strange commentary on a race that wrote 
the ^^ H ass ge sang/" and yet meekly permitted 
that superb defiance of German shameless- 
ness! . . . 

I shall never forget Stratford — ^but I can- 
not write about it, nor will I add any jot to the 
too large heaping of too petty praise. St. 
Peter's effigy must sicken at the hosts of me- 
chanical caressers of his toe. 

I came to Oxford this afternoon, via Leam- 
ington: hansomed it up the hill, into Corn- 
market, and halted by that ancient inn the 
"Roebuck," opposite the "Clarendon" (known 
to Thackeray and his times as the "Star"). 
Then I hunted me out this little place near 
the canal, and set out. 

Up to the Broad Street I went, where the 
O.T.C. chaps with white cap-bands sauntered 
with their misses. There was Balliol, and 
Trinity gates, the Sheldonian projecting into 
the road, and classic Clarendon beyond. I en- 
tered the bookshops, and now I have a Pope's 



166 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

I-VI "Jjjneidos," noted and cribbed in black- 
lead, from Hubert Giles, opposite Balliol, as 
well as Brooke's "Primer" (the immortal 
Stop ford), which I'd made poor shift without 
for months. 

I dined in Cornmarket, and by the time I 
had finished it was dark, the moon rising as I 
reached the Carfax and turned into The High : 
All Saints', Brasenose New Buildings, Univer- 
sity opposite diagonally, with St. Mary's pin- 
nacles blue in the soft light. I turned north 
into RadclifFe Square, and there, deep in 
shadow and bright in the light, St. Mary's, 
All Souls chapel below the moon, the Camera, 
sturdy Brasenose front, the Bodley, and Hert- 
ford, still and exquisite. There is a thrill to 
that view, seen thus — as the Ponte Vecchio, 
the Colosseum by moonlight, even as Memorial 
and the light on the elms in the Yard. And 
so on down the wonderful High — Queen's, 
Examination Halls, the Botanic, and Mag- 
dalen Tower above her great houses. Some 
punts were out on the Cherwell. 

I turned back into Merton Street, past Mr. 
Rudd's college, to Corpus Christi, where I en- 
tered the porter's lodge, and soon was learn- 
ing from the genial old fellow of fifteen years' 
standing, of scholars, commoners, and dons, of 



OXFORD IN WAR TIME 167 

terms and term-bills, beating the buttery, nine- 
o'clock bells, fines, the terrible midnight guinea 
and principal's hidings, responsions, mods, 
honours and greats, Litterm', ploughing, and 
what not all. 

I shall only attempt to write bits of the 
great ensemble that I saw — ^you would doubt- 
less weary of first impressions, remembering 
your own. 

American Y.M.C.A., Aldwi/ch 
Strand, W.C. 

October 1, 1917 

Sunday, the next day, I arose and went upon 
the town about ten — into Balliol, Chapel, 
Hall, and quad: O. T. C. have it now. One 
thing was very good, out of the ruck of this 
rotten show, the War: Balliol's five sheets of 
names in the lodge entry, that begin with 

Lord , Grenadier Guards, 4 September, 

1914 — ^headed in black, with the arms between, 
PRATER, AVE ATQVE VALE. Shorn 
of any maudlin mockery of sentiment and driv- 
el, Balliol's memorial to her dead rings out 
superb and virile. I would like to have that 
alone said of me, in like case. 

I saw nearly all the colleges that day — a 
long day of interest and fine beauty: Jesus, 



168 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Exeter, and Lincoln in the Turl; Indian In- 
stitute, Wadham, Keble; Holywell of dons* 
houses; St. Peter's-in-the-East, Queen's, and 
Magdalen, the most beautiful single place in 
the University, probably; the deer and the 
flower-breathed Water Walks; Merton's fine 
Hall, the Mob Quadrangle, the Fellows* 
Quad ; Brasenose, where I talked with the por- 
ter, learned much, and visited the delightful 
Principal, Dr. Heverford, and discovered my 
chances relative to taking up residence as a 
Commoner, "apres . . ."; that, lacking Greek, 
I must take Kesponsions, meaning three years 
at least, the ordinary time — unless — ^what? 
But this last is only one of my dreams. 

At the day's end I reached Christ Church, 
the incomparable quad,, the old Cathedral, 
Chapter House — and the long list of great 
undergraduates and fellows. It was too bad 
that dusk and closing time came so soon. I 
walked down to the illustrious Isis in the twi- 
light. ... At 8:45 my train left the Great- 
Western for Paddington, and made a poor 
journey of two hours and a half. 

I have not told a tenth of what I saw and 
felt in that Oxford, of which there is only one. 
I realise, I think, its immense advantages over 
American universities — and its narrowness 



OXFORD IN WAR TIME 169 

and shortcomings. But it is really very won- 
derful to me, and some day I hope to wear a 
gown there. 

Last Term went down i'l. early June, and 
Fall Term comes up the 11th. Nearly all the 
colleges are hospitals or O.T.C.'s. Merton is 
a hospital, and begins with six residents; 
"Corps" has twelve, Brasenose fifteen. And 
before I pass on to London — ^that exquisite 
dehcate Reynolds window in New Chapel — 
you know it? — the Babe above, with shepherds 
and Magi adoring, and the pure slim figures 
of the Graces below — all against the afternoon 
sun. 



CHAPTER IX 

LONDON DURING AN AIR RAID 

The Eagle Hut — Belgravia; Rotten Row; Mayfair — 
Over London Bridge to Southwark — Under Shrap- 
nel in Temple Gardens — ^A Night of Experience 

[Letter of October 1, continued] 

London. Paddington and misty Praed- 
Street — "all clear" had gone an hour before. 
I tubed via Baker loo to Trafalgar Square, and 
'bused it to Aldwych. Here in the Eagle Hut 
one finds queer mixtures: a number of Amer- 
ican jacks, some Engineers and Aviation 
Corps (Signal) among the privates from your 
side; American pilots (what sensational Amer- 
ican newspapers idiotically term "birdmen") 
of the French service, in a queer uniform — 
they enlisted before the States entered; U.S. 
Medical Heserve officers, Canadians, Anzacs, 
South African negroes and whites, Austra- 
lians, a few stray Imperials. The hut is run 
by American Y.M.C.A. workers, many of 

17f 



LONDON DURING AN AIR RAID 171 

whom came over for the express purpose. 
They have nearly two hundred beds, excellent 
food accommodations, reading rooms, et cet- 
era, and an ice-cream har, with occasional soda! 

Yesterday morning I 'bused to Victoria, and 
then set out by shanks' mare: by the Royal 
Mews into Belgravia, and Hyde Park Cor- 
ner; down Constitution Hill to the Palace, and 
witnessed the Coldstream Guard change there ; 
through Green Park to "Picca-picca-dilly" by 
Half -Moon Street, turning westward and ar- 
riving in due course at the Corner again. 
Within I made at once for Rotten Row. A 
number of the fine old riders that frequent 
this great course were out, as well as officers, 
misses seul and avec. Astride and side-saddle 
divided about evenly. I walked to the end at 
Kensington Gardens. There was a fine race 
of a splendid girl rider and her escort, a 
Lancers officer. She beat him, very likely at 
his wish. So through the Gardens, to Ken- 
sington Palace, back over the Serpentine to 
Marble Arch and infamous Tyburn Tree. 
Hyde Park is surely top-hole — better than 
any for beauty and quiet and orderliness. 

Then down Park Lane of the marquises and 
earls into Brook Street and Grosvenor Square, 
which I circled (or "squared"). Wounded 



172 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

are in several houses. In one, near Bulwer- 
Lytton's, a lady in black was attending to the 
needs of a roomful of privates, and sitting on 
the bed of one. There was a fine smile on her 
face: human kindliness and feeling may be 
found, even in May fair and Grosvenor Square, 
in this war time. Mount Street, "Barkley'* 
Square, Lansdowne passage to Curzon Street, 
where lives the inimitable Eve of the Taller, 
I think. The "Letters of Eve" are a London 
institution. So to Piccadilly again; St. James 
Street, by the clubs, to the Palace; east down 
Pall Mall, into St. James Square, back, and 
by Cockspur Street to the Nelson Monument. 
Last night I went again into the City; to 
Mansion House by 'bus, then walked down to 
London Bridge. The old structure was 
packed with people hurrying homeward to 
Bermondsey and Newington. A great view 
into the Pool by misty moonlight, is it not? 
So I gained the Borough side. A service for 
the soldiers was going on in the yard of South- 
wark Cathedral (which saw John Harvard's 
baptism — son of Robert Harvard of South- 
wark). Up the ancient High Street, that is 
older than Roman Britain. I bought Skeat's 
text of the "Tales" of Scrivener Dan at the 
Tabard Bookshop : that will be pleasant to re- 



LONDON DURING AN AIR RAID 173 

member in the aftermath, will it not? The 
"Tabard" and "Half-Moon" inns are on the 
left. Just below the Tabard I entered the 
yard of "George" inn, one of the oldest in 
Southwark, with its fine wooden double gal- 
leries and coffee-room with the stalls of by- 
gone years. On the wall was a drawing of it 
by F. Hopkinson Smith, done in charcoal. 
Then south again to Lant Street, and to No. 
46, where the genial tenant, an old Life- 
Guardsman, showed me the house and rooms, 
the very place where Mr. Pickwick visited Bob 
Sawyer and his comrade, when they were train- 
ing to be "sawbones at Guy's." 

Southwark Street took me westward. It 
was half -past seven, and the moon up. The 
constables came about with their two whistle- 
blasts then. "Take cover!" ... I walked on 
to Southwark Bridge. The streets here and 
in the City emptied very quickly. It was still, 
save for hurrying feet occasionally, and the 
two whistles, monotonous. In the City I 
reached St. Paul's and turned west, walking 
with an Australian subaltern, who was rather 
the w^orse for "Johnny Walker." No one else 
on the streets. Probably this is the first time 
since the Plague, if then, that London streets 
were deserted at 7:30 p.m. We turned north 



174 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

for Holborn. Soon the guns began, West 
Ham way, and I ducked under The Daily 
Sketch. The staff and a few women only were 
there. 

After half an hour the shrapnel had stopped 
falling (from our own guns, you know), and 
I crossed into Shoe Lane, emerging on Fleet 
Street, and walking east. I entered Middle 
Temple, rounded Hart Court and Lamb 
Court, turning to Fountain Court ("Chuzzle- 
wit" — Ruth Pinch?) and Garden Court, Tem- 
ple Gardens, where still grow the White and 
Red Roses of Tudor days. A miss stood in 
Garden Court entry, looking up, and much 
perturbed. The guns were popping in the 
southeast. The moon shone over the beauti- 
ful flowers and lawns, with the Embankment 
trees at the bottom, and Hall twenty yards 
east. The guns started up in the northeast 
again; and I calmed the poor thing a little. 
I thought she would faint once, but as a whole 
the British women are very self-possessed and 
brave. She asked if I had chambers, "sir," 
and I denied it, though I might come here 
some time. She was very nice to — ah — con- 
sole, 'pon my word : a good little young woman. 
She went in to her mother, a laundress, I sup- 
pose, and I crossed back to Fountain Court. 



LONDON DURING AN AIR RAID 175 

With a whoop and blare the river monitors 
and 6-inch began, three hundred yards off. I 
raised my eyebrows, but when the shrapnel 
whizzed and ricochetted in the court I deemed 
it wise to double. To 6 Middle Temple I 
went, and down to their cellar, where a num- 
ber of charwomen and caretakers were sitting. 
Just in time. I talked for half an hour with 
the old head-porter of Middle Temple, a 
Lancers S.M. of thirty years' service, Kabul, 
Northern Frontier, Irish and South Africa: 
one of R. K.'s own chaps, since he was corre- 
spondent to that expeditionary force. He told 
of terms and lectures and exams, Equity, 
Criminal, and Chancery; Temple dinners, 
Parliamentarian barristers. Chancery wards; 
Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, Sir John Simon 
(of Crippen and other unsavoury cases' fame) 
— "a bad 'un at the Bailey"; — finally of the 
Inns of Court O.T.C.; of old doings in Hall; 
how last night an aerial torpedo came through 
the roof and shredded the fine carpet on the 
floor in Hall opposite, but fortunately did not 
explode — ^the Hall where Queen Bess danced, 
and Shakespeare's company played. . . . And 
outside, up the little stairway, the shrapnel 
sang and droned, sharply cracking against the 



176 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

court sides, and the guns boomed, rattled, 
barked, and thumped overhead. 

But Fritz did not get in last night. I 
walked out at half -past nine, up Chancery 
Lane, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields 
("Bleak House"), by Bell Yard and Star 
Yard, and Gate Court to Holborn; Gray's 
Inn, Red Lion Square, Southampton Bow, 
and back finally to Strand and Aldwych, to 
sleep at two o'clock. The moon shone on 
calmly. A night of experience, rather. , . . 
With best wishes, yours, 

Arthur A. Stanley. 

Y.M.C.A. Hut, AldwycJi 

Strand, London, W.C. 

2 a.m., 7 October, 1917 

Dear C. M. S.: 

I have just taken my late evening consti- 
tutional — through the Adelphi, up Essex 
Court, through the Bar, up Bell Yard, past the 
Royal Courts of Justice, to Star Yard, abut- 
ting on Lincoln's Inn: then down Carey 

Street, where near by Mrs. of "Bleak 

House," who was "about to receive a Judg- 
ment — on the Day of Judgment," lived at the 
back, in one of the old curio shops, where she 
could see Chancery, then sitting in Lincoln's 
Inn Hall, over the area between. So on into 



LONDON DURING AN AIR RAID 177 

Serle Street right, and Lincoln's Inn Fields: 
it was a great view on the Embankment in 
the moon, and also here by the green "Fields." 
It is two hundred paces only from The Old 
Curiosity Shop, Portsmouth Street, to this 
Hut. 

We are on the Strand west of St. Clement 
Danes and east of St. Mary-le- Strand — Clif- 
ford's Inn lies at the back abutting on Ald- 
wych. 

To-day I visited Parliament, it being Sat- 
urday, and Crystal Palace and Hampton 
Court. Fine old pile, the last! 

Yesterday I met, through an American Hut 
worker, at 47 Russell Square, Eugene Parker 
Chase, Dartmouth, '16, sometime Rhodes 
Scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford — and 
Leighton, 'IT (both Phi Beta Kappa) : we 
lunched in Soho. Chase has left Magdalen 
and is working for the American Y.M.C.A. 
libraries' department. 

[Unsigned] 



CHAPTER X 

ON SALISBURY PLAIN 

In the "Clink" — Hopes for Recommendation for a Com- 
mission — Gas Masks — Galsworthy's "Beyond" — 
Reminiscences of Oxford — The Host at "Ye 
Cheshire Cheese" — Ingoldsby — Leaving for France 
— Ye Ballade of ye Clinke 

Camp No. 16, Codford, Wilts 
10th Canadians, C.G.A. 
October 12, 1917 

Dear Gyles: 

I have two letters of yours recently — one 
awaited me on my return from leave, and the 
other arrived this morning. Both are very 
welcome. . . . When I got back I had six- 
teen letters waiting. I was gone eleven days: 
not a bad average. Two especially were pleas- 
ant to receive — one from the Pater with a 
French banknote for a hundred francs, and my 
monthly money order of £3 from Sydney 
Stanley, to whom the assigned pay is made 
over. . . . 

I spent eight days in London, and had a 

178 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 179 

great time indeed. I explored the metropolis 
from end to end: National Gallery, Parlia- 
ment, opera at the Drury twice — "Figaro" 
and "Aida" — dined in Soho, 'bused to Hamp- 
ton Court, Hampstead, Crystal Palace, and 
so on. I had a great old time. I couldn't tell 
you a tenth of all I saw, so I won't try. . . . 

I overstayed my leave five days, and here 
am I, in the "clink," working daily in the cook- 
house, and spending my nights here, for four- 
teen days, three of which have tJDent. I'm quite 
comfortable, though, with books, and a can- 
dle after the lights go out at ten. It's all in 
a lifetime. I daresay I deserved it. 

I have my application for commission back 
from Cambridge, signed, ready to use when 
we reach "the promised land" — France, — 
which will be in two weeks' time, probably. 
And mind you, nothing is fixed about my com- 
mish. If I had known of the possibility when 
at Horsham, I could have gotten "in" there 
much easier than I can at the Front, where the 
O.C.'s recoromendation is everything. Of 
course, my "rep." as far as "crime" goes, is 
not exactly 100 per cent. I've had a few 
minor sentences — ^but "crime" sheets are torn 
up on proceeding overseas, so I have hopes. 
(A crime is any offence against military law.) 



180 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

If it goes through, I shall apply probably for 
R.G. A., or Hussars, maybe. I'd like the horse 
end of the latter, or the R.F.A. But all that 
is as shall be seen. I only hope and wait, be- 
cause I don't, frankly, like a private's life. All 
N.C.O.'s are returned men in the present Can- 
adian forces, so a star for mine. My rank 
would be Second-Lieutenant, otherwise known 
as subaltern, or "sub." for short. I would be 
addressed as "Mr.," and of course "sir." I 
would have a batman (officer's servant, what 
you call an "orderly"), and would receive 
eight shillings a day and allowances. Not 
princely, eh? but enough to do quite well on, 
at English prices, you know — ^much less than 
American in nearly everything but food. . . . 
I hope you have a good time, wherever you 
go, and clinch your commission.* . . . He- 
member that an officer is once and always an 
"officer and gentleman," and live up to it, as 
I will try to do if I get my commission. And 
remember that we are sons of a great father, 
old boy, who loves us and wishes us well, and 
who is getting rather old; so let neither of us 
do anything to hurt him, for God knows we've 
both done enough of that in the past. I never 

* First-Lieutenant Gyles Merrill went overseas with the 77th 
Field Artillery (U. S. Regulars) early in the summer of 1918. 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 181 

realised what the Pater was to me, old man, till 
the last year or so, and I want to have him 
proud of me if I can. So will you stick with 
me in this? He has written me often, and I 
can read here and there that he has fine hopes 
of you, and thinks you and I will do our bit 
well — so don't let us disappoint him. . . . 
Yours, for France, 

Wainwright. 

lOth Canadian Siege Battery 
Camp No. 15, Codford, Wilts 
Oct. 12, 1917 

Dear Fathier: 

You will forgive me if this letter is a rather 
hurried one, for I returned to find approxi- 
mately twenty pieces of mail for me, and they 
arrive, every post, more and more. Conse- 
quently there is mighty little time to answer in. 
But I'll write a good letter soon. 

I had a great time in Stratford, in Oxford, 
and in London, where I saw some air-raids at 
quite close range. They are interesting unnat- 
ural phenomena, I assure you. But sensible 
London will never be beaten or cowed by them, 
and by shelter-taking the loss of life is made 
nearly nil now. I returned to camp, having 
extended my leave, two days ago. 

Yours of the 6th, 17th, 19th, and 24th came 



182 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

to me in a bunch, though in all probability they 
arrived at different dates. I am glad you had 
an outing at Ipswich — it is a pleasant spot, 
indeed. I didn't get down (was unable) to 
our English Ipswich, and am quite sorry, as 
it would have been interesting. You see my 
pass and free railway warrant was to Strat- 
ford, via London and Oxford, so I was able to 
see both latter places — ^how shocking and ab- 
surd to call "Blighty" — London — a "place!" 
("Blighty" is the Tommies' name for London, 
or home, from Hindustani hilawaiti, meaning 
"the home district," I believe. Songs are writ- 
ten about "Blighty." A wound received at 
the Front, which gives a soldier convalescent 
leave to England, or which necessitates his 
going to a Home — English — ^hospital, is called 
a "Blighty.") . . . 

The money orders (two) of £5 each came 
safely, and I have written already, following 
the arrival of each. Your 100-franc note 
(Sept. 17) came also, in good order. I am 
very much obliged indeed, and it comes very 
handy. I changed it at a local bank (London 
City and Midlands) for £S, 12s., receiving no 
more owing to the depreciated value of the 
franc. As I wrote you a couple of weeks ago, 
British treasury notes (£l and 10s.) are very 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 183 

convenient in France. The Banque de France 
notes, of course, do nearly as well — for Brit- 
ish money is good anywhere on the Front, be 
the vendor French or British, and of course 
no changing is required. Either method would 
do very well, but, as you say, money orders 
are often a "white elephant" over there. All 
the mail appears to come through very well, 
though occasionally delayed, and transfers of 
money orders are effected in two or three days, 
in toto. 

I have two letters from Gyles in the "pile." 
He tells of going to Montreal, and his harm- 
less accident, and tells of life at Ethan Allen. 
I visited the Fort last summer — I mean 1916 
— when I was at Plattsburg. It is a large 
camp, for America, or was then. You should 
see some of the enormous camps here in Eng- 
land — some literally miles square. This place 
has ten or fifteen thousand men in it, and it 
is a tiny village of two parishes, with two par- 
ish churches — Codford St. Peter and Codford 
St. Mary. The camp entrance is in Codford 
St. Peter, my hut in the next parish, War- 
minster, I think, and the post-office in Cod- 
ford St. Mary. 

There are a multitude of things to speak 
of. We have "drawn" our gas masks, the 



184 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

P.H. helmet and box respirator. The P.H. 
hehnet, a chemically saturated bag of cloth, 
fits over the head and under the tunic collar, 
with eye-glasses and a mouthpiece. The air 
is breathed in through the cloth and nose, and 
out by the mouthpiece. This helmet is effi- 
cient for a couple of hours or so. The box 
respirator is a different thing. In a bag slung 
by a strap around the neck, carried at the side 
ordinarily, but shortened to the chest in use, is 
a can, chemicalised, through which air is 
breathed in through layers of militating acids 
and solutions, to the mouthpiece. The nose is 
clasped closed by a nose-clip. Air is breathed 
out of the mouthpiece and exits by a vent, 
which automatically closes when breath is 
taken in. Thus the wearer breathes in and out 
through the mouth, pure air coming in via 
can, and bad air going out via vent. The face 
mask, with eye-glasses, protects the eyes and 
face from lachrymatory ("tear") gases. This 
mask will last in use for six hours or so, but a 
gas attack is never so long as that. 

Soon we shall draw our "tin hats" or steel 
helmets. They protect from shrapnel and 
rifle bullets by deflecting. The German hel- 
met (called "Dolly Varden," after the heroine 
of Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge," who wore a 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 185 

similar mob-cap) is poorer than ours, though 
it seems to protect more, for it has flatter sides, 
and "stops" rather than deflects a missile, 
with the result that the missile often pene- 
trates. ... 

We shall probably go over within two weeks. 
My address will remain "6th Siege Section, 
10th," etc., but "c/o Army P.O., London," is 
the only place designation. Of course you can- 
not know exactly where we are in France. But 
the Canadian Front, it is well known, is in the 
vicinity [two words erased by the censor]. 
We go as drafts to the batteries, I to the 6th 
Canadians ; but I will write my French address 
later. . . . 

I am very well, and weigh in my clothes 
eleven stone four, or 158 pounds, American- 
ised. . . . 

The application came safely back from Mr. 
Lane, with a kind letter. I shall be able to use 
it when we go across. I think that it is not 
practicable, just now, to change my appella- 
tion. I am sorry, but I think it must wait till 
later. I can't very well explain here. . . . 

Quite a number of the battery are farm lads 
from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Per- 
haps some one is son of some guide of yours, 
in past seasons. I wish you every success in 



186 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

your vacation, and all that the law allows ! In 
turn, I hope to exceed, rather, that limit, of 
Germans. . . . 

With best wishes, your sincerely. 

Wain WRIGHT. 

Guard Boom, Camp No. 15 
Codford, Wilts 
October 13, 1917 

Dear C. M. S.: 

Do you know this modern six-shilling mum- 
mer of "life," called Galsworthy? You may 
be aware that he has recently published, among 
other novels, a creation, "Beyond," and doubt- 
less is now reaping the fat royalty, for every 
one in England reads these false prophets now, 
and, of course, no one ever reads a war-book. 
They are, indeed, rather rotten form, and be- 
hind British masked convention in this regard 
there rests a much deeper, sadder reason — 
but this Galsworthy is positively jolly- well 
rottener ! I this evening finished "Pendennis" : 
likewise read a latter instalment of this au- 
dela affair. I have read previous ones, but 
this capped it. Violently plunged from the 
dear old tale of egotistical Pen, ludicrous 
Poker, and good and saintly Helen and Laura 
— that fine girl last-mentioned! with their de- 
cent, clean story — ^into this shrieking twen- 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 187 

tieth-century sordidness of intrigue, seduction, 
and rampant infidelity, to pitiful women and 
filthy men, from Laura's good and holy faith 
in God of our Fathers — to Gyp's (the "hero- 
ine's") callous cynicism and crass indifference, 
smirking with — 

"Za vie est vaine: 
Un peu d'amour, 
Un peu de haine — 
Et puis, bonjourf — '* 

Gad, I am sickened and everlastingly fed- 
up with this Galsworthy — ^who, of course, did 
write "The Dark Flower." But, na'theless, a 
bos with him! 

Now that you have borne with me (let us 
hope so, at any rate) for the extent of my 
first paragraph, you will perhaps read on. 
Know, much tried person, that I write this in 
a 6x10 cell in the "clink" (with a guttering, 
flaring candle), having, it is true, somewhat 
disagreed with the military as to when my 
services were again expected after leave to 
London and other towns, and having received 
on return the delightful surprise of five days' 
pay docked and fourteen days F.P. No. 2, 
from an eye-glassed and gouty colonel of 



188 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Royal Artillerie. Eh hien, voila tout! Cette 
chose, c'est Hen que juste! Tiens, c'est la 
guerre! 

Oh, the dear delightful time in Oxford, my 
friend! To be there on that so ancient spot, 
where studied prelates, kings, gentry, and 
commons, the great men of history and litera- 
ture, our literature, this matchless legacy from 
out of storm and war and peaceful content- 
ment, bountiful fruit of these centuries of the 
best and noblest thought of this our England 
— enshrined here within this slumbering ex- 
quisite old town, with its pleasant walks and 
grey ancient buildings, memorials to these men 
who have passed hence, but whom we ever re- 
member as builders and lovers of this same 
England. I would like exceedingly to go there 
some day; and the delightful old principal of 
Brasenose, whom I called upon at his house in 
the High, writes me that I may omit Respon- 
sions, having a year's military science — ^mak- 
ing possible a residence of only two years. 

I saw only one poor commoner at the Uni- 
versity, and very few dons. It was long vaca- 
tion, Fall Term not coming up for a week yet. 
(Kings, in London, is well-nigh out of busi- 
ness, I believe.) 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 189 

Cecil Rhodes was an Oriel man, and his 
statue is let into the front on the High. He 
has done a great work indeed with his scholar- 
ships. University is proud of Grinling Gib- 
bons's carving, and Shelley's memorial as well. 

Good Boniface, mine host of "Ye Cheshire 
Cheese," Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, told 
me also of Oxford, when I supped there, and 
listened to the old reprobate of a parrot there 
in Dr. Johnson's coffee-room, which, if you 
call it certain opprobrious epithets, will an- 
swer you very filthily and to the point in one 

word, or rather two, "you !" This waiter, 

whom I spoke of on the preceding page, and 
nearly lost sight of, held forth on Oxford: "I 
used to 'ave a friend 'oo drove the Oxford 
caoach; from Piccad'lly Circus it run, 'ite 
styges, an' fourteen mile it myde too, wiv ten 
ahtsides and six in — ^right by Maudlun Tower 
an' the 'Igh Street to the 'Mitre' in Cornmar- 
ket." — Ah, I can't give you his argot: it 
is midnight, and my pencil is sadly meander- 
ing. What bosh I've been writing! I would 
not occupy your time with commonplaces al- 
ways (vanity! that ever I wrote anything 
else!) so I shall stop this for the time. Good- 
night, my friend. 



190 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Sunday, le l^-me Octobre 

I have no energy to-day. I cannot write to- 
day. I will not burden you. Adios — hast a 
manana! 

Monday, le 15me Octobre 

I am lifeless. I have this morning a pleas- 
ant thought, however. I have been reading 
Ingoldsby, and my mind is a queer jimable of 
impressions. That is an exquisite thing at the 
end: 

"As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, 
Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the spraye ! 
There came a noble Knyghte, 
With his hauberke shynynge brighte, 
And his gallant heart was lyghte, 
Free and gaye; 
As I laye a-thynkynge, he rode upon his waye." 

Wednesday, 17 me Octobre 

To-day I left the clink, and now prepare 
myself for leaving England. 

I read, whilst "imprisoned," the "Ingoldsby 
Legends" entire. Second Part "King Henry 
IV," and more cursorily "Midsummer Night's 
Dream" over again, and First Part "King 
Henry IV." I enjoyed myself very much. 
But now to fresh fields and pastures. I take 
over in books: Shakespeare, Tennyson (to 
156), "Canterbury Tales" (Skeat, Oxford 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 191 

edition), Vergil, "^neid" I-VI, "Wilhelm 
Tell," "Golden Treasury," "Pickwick," "Col- 
lected Verse" of Rudyard Kipling, et alia; 
French, German, and English Dictionaries; 
map {Daily Telegraph). I hope at Folke- 
stone to secure a small Horace, an Iliad-let 
(Macmillan's Pocket Edition), and "Don 
Quixote de la Mancha." I also have my old 
Harvard Italian grammar, and "England in 
the Middle Ages" by a Manchester woman, 
B.A. 

We leave this evening for France, via 
Folkestone : we stop at the base, [three or four 
words deleted.] I cannot tell just when I 
shall be able to write again. But will you 
please carry on? 

I have sent you a book, under separate cov- 
er; also another epistle. Luck to you, Dart- 
mouth, and — 

^Wivat unmersitas, 
Vivant professores!" 

Yours, as ever, 
Wainwright Merrill. 

I am glad that my scribblings have been of 
some pleasure to you: yours certainly have, 
and are, to me, more than I can easily say. 

W. M. 



192 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

YE BAIiLADE OF YE CLINKE. 

(With any and all apologies.) 

Uponne a breezy automnne daye 
Wythinne ye cloudie monthe October, 
Two soldiers on their blankets laye, 
And bothe of them wer sadde and sober. 

Above them spreade a dismal roofe, 
Around them iron walles of greye; 
Ye O.C. hadde them bye ye hoofe. — 
Two gunners in ye Chnke they laye. 

Ye one hadde disagrede (ye asse!) 
Wythe what ye Major hadde to saye 
About ye lengthe of Blyghtye passe. 
Two gunners in ye Clinke they laye. 

Ye other hadde hadde hys owne idea 
Of duty on ye previous daye; 
Lipped ye poleaceman-bombardier. 
Two gunners in ye Clinke they laye. 

"Alias," sayed one, "what for did I 
Remayne to see ye musicke-playe? 
In vayne ye sightes of beautee — fie!" 
Two gunners in ye Clinke they laye. 

"Forsoothe," ye other quothe, "I felte. 
When I was seized and ledde awaie, 
Like byffinge him right on hys belte." — 
Two gunners in ye CHnke they laye. 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 193 

"For 7??^, two weekes of duraunce vyle; 
Full soone ye Major wille make haye 
Of all ye swearynges in goode style." — * 
Two gunners in ye Clinke they laye. 

"To-morrowe it shal bee ye same; 
Ye barres obscure ye lyghte of daye; 
We're fedde-uppe wythe ye filthye game." — 
Two gunners in ye Clinke they staye. 

W. M. 

Codford St. Mary's, Wiltshire 
October 11, 1917 

Dear Father: 

I send you this evening some cards and 
handbooks which I picked up during my jour- 
neyings in England. They go by parcel post, 
and I hope you receive them. Also the broken 
cross of Canterbury Cathedral stone, unfor- 
tunately crushed in my bag; one of our cap- 
crests, and a piece of shrapnel from a H.E. 
shell, fired on Lydd ranges, which was a "dud" 
(unexploded shell). 

I sent some books and belongings to Cox's 
warehouse in London, for keeping. 

We leave this evening for France, via 
Folkestone. We shall stop at ifitaples (prob- 
ably) , the Canadian Base. I cannot tell just 
when I shall be able to write. My address, till 
I advise you differently, is: "6th Siege Sec- 



194 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

tion, 10th Can. Siege Battery, B.E.F., France, 
c/o Army P.O., London." 

I am sorry to have to cut this short. I am 
well, and expectant of a good whack at the 
Boche! 
Best wishes to everyone. 

Yours sincerely, 

Wainwright, 

Codford St. Mary's, Wiltshire 
October 17, 1917 

DeaeC. M. S.: 

I send you this evening, by post, a battered 
copy of "Puck of Pook's Hill," which I se- 
cured in Hastings in haste, when I went to 
Burwash. It accompanied me there, every- 
where I went, and I have read it entirely since. 
So I hope that you will pardon its condition, 
and put it among your Kipling books, as a bit 
of a memento. I had to dispose of it before 
leaving. 

I have been zealously trying to write you a 
good letter to repay partly your three fine 
ones, but have signally failed. I have had no 
time since I left the clink (as I delineate un- 
der another envelope). I hope to do better 
later on. 

[Five lines deleted by censor.] 



ON SALISBURY PLAIN 195 

I thank you very sincerely for your letters, 
again. I hope that you will write whenever 
you can and will; tell of Hanover life (which 
I lived once) ; the oracles and high-priests of 
English I-II (with which you are still con- 
nected?) ; and Kipling — anything else you will. 
Believe me ever, 

Your grateful friend, 

Wainwright Merrill. 



CHAPTER XI 

TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 

Folkestone Pier — Landing at Boulogne — The Camp on 
the Hilltop — Smoke Gossip of the British Army — 
The Quai — At the Y.M.CA. by the Priesterstraat : 
An English Padre's Talk on America — Aeroplanes 
in Formation — Going Up to the Line 

[Postcard to his father.] 

Folkestone, 18 Oct., 1917 

Voila notre caserne pour aujourd'hm^ et le 
quai dfou Von part pour Boulogne — comme 
nous. 

Bonnes volontes! 

Wain WRIGHT. 

Som ewhere-in-France 
October 19, 1917 

Dear Mr. Merrill: 

Not long since our transport, a Belgian ves- 
sel, once in the Ostend service, took us over 
the Channel, which was quite calm, and al- 
lowed a more than usually fine passage. We 
went quickly enough, and sighted the chalk- 

196 




MARINE CRESCENT, FOLKESTONE — Barracks at the Right. 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 197 

cliif s on the French side, and slid rapidly into 
the good harbour and between the jetties. 
These are overhung on the right by the cliff 
hotels, of grey, as everything else in the town 
is, and placarded with English signs. 

We were slow to disembark, but finally land- 
ed, and found our kit-bags to begin a hot and 
wearisome trek up an awe-inspiring hill, after 
we had foot-slogged through the narrow 
streets with their few vans and trams. The 
picturesqueness of French street names is 
striking — Rue du Bras d'Or, Rue des Grandes 
JEcoleSj Rue Victor Hugo. Finally we 
emerged on the hilltop, and the broad Cliemin 
National — "Pas de Calais , 96 h.; St. Omer^ 

We turned in at the camp and halted, break- 
ing off shortly to seek our tents. The Ser- 
geant-Major, with British terseness, chanted 
out the camp orders while we were standing 
there, rather fagged — and I assure you we 
were jolly well glad to divest our bodies of 
great-coats and kits. 

The camp commands the pleasant Norman- 
dy landscape, browning and reddening now in 
its scattered and clustered forets, with villas 
and newish red-tile and concrete chateaux on 
the back hills, old farmhouses here and there in 



198 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

the valleys, and broad hedged fields as a back- 
ground. One can see far down "into Brit- 
tany," comes the fancy, but of course it af- 
fords not so distant a view as that. We see 
the Channel to north and west, north over the 
Napoleon Monument, a black round pillar 
against the horizon, in the au dela of which a 
white lighthouse-flash comes regularly at night. 
But the view over the grey and blue Channel 
doesn't reach to England. . . . 

All's well here, in spite of the black on most 
civilians. Some gamins are happily, piercing- 
ingly chanting the "Marseillaise" in the road, 
and a couple of round chunky Norman greys 
are bobbing and jingling uphill with heavy 
drays, their farmer-drivers whistling. The 
poilus are in the campagne^ and les autres a 
la maison carry on. It is for both: "lis ne 
passeront pas" backed by "il faut qu'ils re- 
tournent!" 

Little has happened since we came. It is 
quite chilly, and when the short parades are 
done we retire to the warmer tents' and recrea- 
tion canteens, when they are open. A big 
beaker of tea comes well. We turn in here 
by nine or nine-thirty, and are glad to roll in 
pairs for warmth. And it is going to be colder 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 199 

and much wetter. Mais tout fa — c^est la 
guerre! 

Things soldiers need are cheaper in France 
than in England, for duties and war-taxes are 
removed for Thomas's benefit: a huge quan- 
tity of tea — quite a litre — for a penny. But 
food is nearly as high in price, and some things 
cost much more. 

I haven't much more of interest, save that I 
have found a man, teacher of classics at a 
college in "New Brunswick, who knows my 
Arma virumque excellently, and also a num- 
ber of teachers and men I knew at Dartmouth 
and Harvard. The fame of old Professor 
Lord (J. K., who taught Latin Lit.) had 
reached his ears also. It is a small world, is 
it not? 

I hope you have good luck on your trip hunt- 
ing this year. ISTew Brunswick cannot be 
nearly shot out yet. I will write more when 
il y en a. 

My address is: 6th Canadian Siege Battery, 
B.E.F., France, c/o Army P.O., London. I 
would be careful about the name and number, 
without and within, when you write, as the 
letters are censored often, and need plain di- 
rection to reach their destination. Of course 



200 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

we cannot, in turn, mention where we are now. 
Our letters are censored by our subalterns, 
l)efore leaving. 

Yours sincerely, 

Arthur. 

France, October 19, 1917 

Dear C. M.S.: 

We came over, not long ago, to , and 

are encamped here on the top of a high hill 
commanding the surrounding country, the 

Channel, and Gris-Nez, with the Pas de . 

It's night now, and the stars are coming out 
plainly. The smoke of Channel voyageurs still 
hangs here and there, and a light-ship is wink- 
ing, out in the Straits, away off. And over 
this Channel we have left behind England and 
her fine white cliffs, guarding her in her "nar- 
row seas." 

We had a capital crossing, very nearly calm, 
and quite clear — and the dear old cliffs sank, 
and hung, and faded out in the short haze: 
and I had left England — but, carrying on, 
[three lines deleted by the censor.] . . . 

As I looked back, we shot into the harbour, 
slackened, and slid between the jetties into the 
basin and alongside the quay, with quaint, sign- 
ridden, grey stone houses perching on the green 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 201 

shore cliff; and blue ^oilus were standing 
stolidly by the sides of the Place, fusil au pied. 

We straggled off, picked up kit-bags, and 
formed two-deep before the Bureau de Pastes, 
moved off at quick-march, through narrow 
streets of more signs and shops, every other 
one, seemingly, a coiffeur, epicerie or houlan- 
gerie. But how few people on the streets : old 
working women, some soldiers, service-striped 
caporals with medailles (the '^Legion," large- 
ly) ; some bent old men, children hopping 
along, demanding "cigarette picture, meester!" 
(inevitably), and bravely volunteering to 
shoulder a kit-bag larger than they for a 
penny 'Hout complet" — ^black largely worn by 
the civilians, every other person having it. 
One mentally compared the stoic jesting car- 
ry-on spirit of the Strand and Piccadilly, with 
now and then, if one looked for it, a black 
cravat. But so few people! 

Up the winding hill road we went, to and 
past the heavily- walled convent — or castle, was 
it? — in ancient grey, with the arrow slits. 
Now, still climbing, you pass poorer-class 
shops and small stone houses. A tramcar, 
sparsely filled, hummed gaily by, with a grin- 
ning gamin on the rear coupling — Gavroche, 
for all the world. 



202 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

We have reached the top, and turn into the 
fields on the left to our tents — twelve men to a 
white pyram. We delve into white ration- 
bags for the loaves and tinned salmon ; another 
eternal parade is held to discover the missing 
loaves, and we are free for an hour to explore 
the camp, and cheer ourselves with a big bum- 
per of tea and cake and sardines at the B.E.F. 
canteen, the haven of hungry souls. But 

"Evoer (or " it!") says No. 10 Siege, 

"no bloody beer till six!" A parade at five to 
unearth the missing blankets. It is chill here 
on the hilltop, for all our great outlook, and 
on go our cloaks. We climbed that three-mile 
hill in them in the heat this afternoon, too. 

In the evening No. 10 (O Decima Legio!) 
drinks tea, eats cake, or imbibes beer, and buys 
Navy Cut, or Players, Capstans, and Wood- 
bines, or "Greys," State Express, and Kenil- 
worths, according to its individual wont. I use 
Kenilworths, which are Is. 2d. in England for 
twenty, but here, to Tommies, only 8d. in all 
the canteens. Craven A's, in Piccadilly Is. 6d. 
for twenty-five, become here Is. 6d. for fifty, 
owing to duties being removed. Smoke gos- 
sip does not interest non-fumeurs, I suppose, 
but it is vital in the British Army. The com- 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 203 

mon smoke, Players, 3d. to 4d. for ten, and 
Woodbines, 2d. for ten, are highly favoured. 
I cannot abide Players. 

At nine (early sleeping here) Tommy and 
"Canydian" repair to their tents, stow as best 
they can their kit-bag, water-bottle, haversack, 
bandolier, belt and mess-tin, spare boots, P.H. 
helmet, tin hat and box respirator, while, sleep- 
ing with his rubber sheets (two), blankets and 
great coat (or cloak), with a pillow of his 
tunic, il dorme-t-en. 

"Quelque-part-de-la-France" 
October 22, 1917 

Two evenings have I been a la ville: it was 
quite mildly interesting. In place of British 
khaki everywhere, one finds blue in as great 
abundance — poilus and their officers of the 
honest Boulonnais on leave, base-employed 
Tommies, A.S.C., K.E., and all that sort of 
thing; blue sailors with queer little caps "de 
VArmee de la Mer" but, strangely, not very 
many women. 

The quai is interesting: British and French 
"navvies," railway men, still some blue-dressed 
douaniers, and here at the right, over the Pont, 
the long wagons-lits of the Bombay Express, 
about to leave for Marseilles — finely appointed 



204 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

carriages, in mahogany, with all sorts of fit- 
tings, all corridor ones, of course, peopled with 
many of the brass-hatted and becrimsoned 
Staff, with their tres blase and ennuye air, 
which is strictly comme-il-faut for these im- 
portant personages. The quai ends in a dim 
jetty pharos, barely visible, and the Channel 
mist shuts in all else. A fog-horn is bawling, 
and four searchlights are slanting into the sky, 
which is not completely obscured of stars. In 
a word, it is a typical Channel war-time night, 
on the coast of notre beau pays. 

Shops are quite well stocked, and people 
in general carry on, with the aid of goods from 
England. Food is rather high, but one can 
still get plenty of sugar and delicious frosted 
gateaux^ large and luscious, at two francs and 
a half, which isn't bad at all. It strikes me 
that there is, on the whole, less grumbling at 
the war here than in England, where our dear 
bluff British habit of grousing will never down, 
I suppose. The French sum it up in a terse 
"c^est la guerre f and an mch-lif t of the should- 
ers. Tramcars still go about, ancient fiacres 
are pressed in for lack of essence for the taxis, 
and lorries dash about everywhere. 

D'autre cJiose^ 'voild cette belle Normandie. 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 205 

It is fine to-day, and was so yesterday. Till 
later. 

Yours, 

AUTHUR A. S. 

Evidently Wainwright is following Army 
regulations when he writes "France," when he 
makes it obvious by the context that he is on 
Belgian soil. In his letter to me dated Octo- 
ber SO, where he has first written, "for you 
are in Belgium and keep to the right," he has 
crossed out "in Belgium" and inserted, "on 
the Continent." 

Somemhere-Else, France 
October H> 1917 

DeaeC. M. S.: 

This evening I have been over to the Y. M. 
C. A. by the Priesterstraat and the Church, 
to a most interesting talk. I'll try to tell you 
a bit of it. Everything was in the audience: 
muddy and fed-up Imperials of the pic- 
turesque county regiments' badges, Chinese 
labour Coolies, N-Zed dark-complexioned 
chaps, Ossys (Australians) with square chins 
and withered eyelids, blue-and-green kilted 
Camerons and the black Argyll plaid, Cana- 
dians — everything. 

The stage was small and low-canopied, 
draped with red and white bunting, and with 



206 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

a small table covered with the Union Jack — 
the first one I'd seen for a month, so I noticed 
it. We here do not parade the Flag. Smoke 
hung heavy in the room, and spread in blue 
aureole over the men on the stage — a Major 
of Artillery; a Staif Colonel of Infantry; at 
the right a brass- and red-hatted Staff Gen- 
eral, with the African, Soudan, and the '90's 
Indian ribbons up — ^he sat with crossed brown 
glittering boots ; next him a blue-capped Staff 
Padre-Colonel, smoking; and by the table 
another Padre was talking, and holding his 
crowd. [Two lines deleted by the censor.] 
... he had gone to America last spring, be- 
fore the States entered, to tour the German 
Middle West, and talk Britain and the War 
to the Germans. [Two lines deleted.] . . . 
for the pure love of this cause. He had visited 
all the district desired, the East too, and the 
South, and he told wonderfully of it — of all 
that spring ferment over chez-vous, which I 
missed; of a country coming into line, from 
probable civil war if war had come in Decem- 
ber, to union, in a sense, in April; of his Atlan- 
tic crossings ; of the dead men in lifebelts, sin- 
gly, six hundred miles from land ; of the false 
life-boats with upright oar and dummy ex- 
hausted men S-O-S-ing steamers up to the 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 207 

periscope within the oar and a torpedo. The 
Staff Padre uncrossed his muddy jack-boots 
and reached a muddy hand for the trench-can- 
dle on the table to relight his pipe, and outside 
a shell ploughed down into the little town with 
a roar — nobody moved or noticed it, — and the 
speaker went on, holding you by his exquisite 
English and wonderful vocabulary. He could 
joke finely too, and ended with a great tribute 
to America and its President. 

The General, after the droit du seigneur of 
Generals and that holy ilk, rose to top it, and 
in the thin uneven voice of Generals held forth : 
"I agwee entiahly wiv — ah — the speakah's 
'straordin'rily interesting lectuah ; weally quite 
amazin' an' vivid — ah! — " 

It will rain before morning, and the roof 
leaks, but ga ne fait rien. I cannot give you 
the charm of that lecture — I see I've signally 
failed. 

October 25, 1917 

The streets again, rush, bustle, khaki, and 
mud. It is pleasant to overlook the horrid 
prices, and visit the little shops, where gut- 
tural French, Flemish, and wonderful English 
are spoken, stridently, constantly, by the wom- 
en to their diverse customers. But one can 
buy fair chocolate at 1 fr. 50c. the half-pound 



208 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

(made in Boston), so why worry? Fruit is 
exorbitant — 2 fr. the pound for eating apples 
and pears. 

Yesterday afternoon, with a ci-devant Latin 
instructor of Mount Allison College, some- 
where in the Maritime Provinces, I walked, 
tin-hatted, out on that busy road northward to 

D . It was plein soleil, and a fascinating 

sight. Lorries of every shape and form, dec- 
orated vv^ith harps, lions rampant, dominoes, 
eyes, howitzers, running foxes, and red club- 
spots, sputtled along through the eternal muck, 
in two lines back and forth; despatch riders 
tore by between them ; now and again a placid 
Flemish mule drew a bobbing two-wheeled 
carree over the cobbles, and pedestrians ven- 
tured on that road at imminent risk to life and 
limb. 

We came to an aerodrome at the right of 
the poplars. Two flights were beginning — the 
machines in parallel lines with buzzing pro- 
pellers were waiting in their green body-colour 
and blue-and-white spottings of the Allies. 
One could glimpse the pilots bending over the 
engines and speaking to the mechanics on the 
ground. Then two men holding the middle 
'plane of one flock sprang away — the machine 
darted forward, bumping a little right toward 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 209 

us; on she came, and when a stone's throw 
away tilted her planes and shied into the air at 
fifty degrees, and over our heads and the trees. 
The next one followed, and the next, their 
roars blending. They were soon all up and 
making off in formation toward the long row 
of "sausages" (observation balloons) that rest- 
ed easily at intervals, fifteen of them in sight, 
above the green plain and trees eastward that 
marked the Line. There was work to be done. 

That morning a battleplane swooped low 
over our billet. A swarm of these dark flies 
were hovering and darting in the southeast. 
Some prey, probably, I thought, and correctly, 
for as tiny grey puffs bloomed out among the 
swarm, and reports followed, one knew that 
the Boche was of their number; and they com- 
ing nearer, one could distinguish the grey- 
white glint on the opponents. It was a hot 
little show. Presently, on the sixth puff, one 
of the silver gnats dropped suddenly, slowly 
turning over and over and flashing in the sun- 
light. It fell out of sight, and directly the 
other silver thing shot out of the swarm, back 
east — to Bochie, where he belonged. Our flies 
quickly dispersed, and I returned to my book. 
There was one less Kindtodter in this sector. 

To-day is fine after the rain, and I joy in 



210 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

it, for it will not be for long. There are por- 
tentous events in the nebula of the approaching 
time — as you shall doubtless hear in due sea- 
son. I cannot tell of them now. 

With the best of wishes to you and your 
Dartmouth chaps, 

Yours, for England, 

Arthur A. S. 

Somewhere-Else-in-France 
October 27, 1917 

Dear Mr. Merrill: 

Soon we are going up to the Line. There 
has been great work done there recently, but 
there's a lot yet to do, and we're here for that. 

The weather is getting a bit wet, of course, 
and November is nearly here — and I've a 
nasty cold. Yet one should always be cheer- 
ful. We have had a bit of a warm time with 
the Boche in the air, but he's only an amateur, 
after all. 

I have little time now, but will write more 
when I can. We have received no mail since 
we landed, it all going to the units of which 
we form sections — ^but there is prospect of 
some soon. 

I hope you are well, and that you will have 
a good season at it with your old friend Cervus. 
The chief inn here is named '^Au Grand Cerf," 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 211 

and there is a cerf grand rampant on the sign 
hanging without. He doesn't inhabit these 
regions any more, as he did in the days of 
the Belgse, The modern Belgse, also, run 
more to farming than their bellicose ancestors 
did. 

Through profuse conversation with the 
shop-keepers and Flemish denizens here I've 
much improved and fluentised my French. 
The watchword of the Tommy is "Compree? 
Alleymands no hon!" This magic abracadab- 
ra apparently suffices, in his mind, to open 
the gates of the Voltaireian and Moliereian 
muse, 

lYours sincerely, 

Aethur a. Stanley. 

Somewhere-Else-in-France 
October 28, 1917 

Dear Gyles: 

We are shortly to go up to the Line. There 
is work to be done there, and our predecessors 
in the R.A. ("Ubique") corps are heard in- 
cessantly banging away up there. And al- 
though Flanders mud may not be excessively 
pleasant, it is all part of the game. 

This little place is an interesting spot, and 
one can see nearly everything of the Britisli 
Army here. Your corps is well represented. 



«12 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

and every half -hour sees a battery going up or 
down — tin-hatted, muddied, and spurred. 
They are also of the Ubique corps — for they 
are "everywhere" with a vengeance. 

I saw two self-conscious "U.S.R.'s" pass 
recently. They're learning the game, I sup- 
pose (mark my superior air) . 

But all sorts of luck to you, and I'll write 
whenever chance offers. You and I always 
hit it off rather well, mon vieux, and if my 
turn should come sometime now, I wish you 
good-bye, and good luck again — and carry on ! 
Your army may be the finish of this filthy old 
show, the War — ^which we hope will end before 
very long. 

Hope you'll get over and into it by the 
spring. 

Yours, 

Aethiir a. S. 

The following letter, in many ways the most 
remarkable Wainwright sent, he apparently 
did not mail at once — possibly did not mail at 
all. Although his letter to Edward Hubbard 
dated November 2 was stamped at the Army 
post-office on November 4, this bears the stamp 
of November 6. 



TO FRANCE AND FLANDERS 213 

Somewhere-Else-in-France 
October 28, 1917 

i>EAa Edward: 

I do not know where this will reach you — 
but it's only to say that we're here, ten miles 
from the Line, in a little town in the Flanders 
mud, that is continually busy with the traffic 
of war back and forth from the Line — where 
we are going very shortly. 

It's a bald sort of fact — just going up into 
this sector of particularly infernal hell; but 
il faut quon rit, si Von le pent; though it's 
mighty hard, Ed — ^leaving everything back 
there, perhaps for good and all. So if it should 
be that, friend, I'll say good-bye — ^but God! 
how can one — a couple of simple words and it's 
over, and you go up to the Line, and try to 
laugh, or smile at least, and swallow it down. 
But it's part of the game, of course, and it is 
a noble end which we seek out of the ruck 
and jetsam of death and broken men and last- 
ing sorrow. . . . Mais tu sais hien fa que je 
veux dire, et ce que je ne peiuc pas ecriver — 
s'il doit etre '^adieu/' sois fidele aucc meilleures 
choses de ta vie, mon ami et mon frere, tou- 
jours! — et tu sais que je faime et que nous — 
que moi, je n'oublierai pas pa que notre cama- 
raderie a ete — jamais. Alors, en aucun cas. 



214 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

bonne chance et au revoir! — parceque notis 
Savons quHl y a wne Vie apres cette vie-ci — 
Good-bye, Ed. 

Yours, 

Abthue. 



CHAPTER XII 

AT THE FRONT 

"Pleasantly Domiciled in a Brick-walled Passage" — ^A 
Battery Position — On the Mud-covered Highway — 
The Ruins of Ypres — Work of the Heavy Guns — 
The Wine-cellar — The Infantry on the YpreS 
Front — English Democracy — A Meeting in London 
with Two College Men— "Till Later" 

Elservhere-in-France 
October 30, 1917 

DearC. M. S.: 

Well, n'y a pas beaucoiip a dire — ^weVe gone 
up to the Line. At the present I am pleasant- 
ly domiciled in a heavily-brick-walled passage 
under a brick roof and five feet of stone, steel, 
sandbags, bricks, and earth. Above that is the 
air, and all about remnants of houses, jagged 
tree-trunks; to the north a fine grey fa9ade of 
a once beautiful ancient edifice known the 
world over, beside which are some ruined 
arches lolling drunkenly about and fallen in, 
and an angle still standing. Everywhere about 
are ruin and demolished buildings and shell- 

215 



216 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

holes. The roads are none too even, are cob- 
bled, and very muddy. It is dark and cloudy 
up there, but well-lit in flashes from the Guns, 
that never cease. We are in a much-worn and 
long-suffering city that has seen three battles, 
the beginning of the Huns' gas-limbo, and our 
hammering them into giving back. 

We came up from the depot town about a 
week ago, went into billets, and since have been 
quite busy. The lorries, guns, and horse trains 
go by continually over the muddy cobblestones, 
dirty Tommies plod along under pack and 
"tin-hat," shells come over, whine, and drop, — 
and the War goes on. 

From here you go Up, walking, or "hop- 
ping" a lorry, if lucky, to the nearest point to 
your battery, then foot-slogging it again to 
the position. There you are : a corduroy road, 
perhaps, six green and brown and black paint- 
ed things along it on more corduroy; hoop- 
iron shrapnel shelters for the shells et alia, a 
dugout near by somewhere for cook-house and 
other purposes, and loose planks, all lying in 
a wide plain of green and mud and water-filled 
shell-holes. Further off in any direction you 
see more groups like your own — ammunition 
stacked in "dumps," little railway lines run- 
ning about, a road in the distance, marked by 




CANADIAN HEAVY ARTILLEKV IN ACTION 



AT THE FRONT 217 

crawling square things that are lorries, and 
defined now and again by cone-up spurts of 
mud and earth, with the solid crack of H.E. 

The guns about you are banging in vary- 
ing keys and running the scale from fortissimo 
to giac — o gad! never giacoso, but at times 
allegro. There is nothing giacoso about the 
guns. Various whines assort themselves about 
you, most of which you see ignored, but at 
some, when they shrill up clearly enough, the 
plastered brown figures about crouch low: 
plunk! — ^it is a dud. Fritz's ammunition is 
filthy, and gives a large percentage of duds. 
Little blue bursts tell of ill-judged time-shrap- 
nel, with too long fuse. Those two greenish 
yellow clouds, close to the ground, have just 
come from gas shells. 

Overhead the 'planes are always hovering, 
dipping, nose-diving, side-slipping, and coast- 
ing, for the Guns rely on their aircraft for in- 
formation about the effect of firing. When he 
hovers over the position, his wireless is sending 
down his observations, directions, and news. 

A quarter of an hour ago you might have 
seen a bit of a hot show above. Three of ours 
were chasing four silvery specks which were 
shown by the Archie shrapnel-bursts below 
them. You heard the Lewis-gun staccato and 



218 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

in pauses of the firing our steady buzz and the 
cursed Hun grinding "er-er-er." The whole 
afi^air moved off and finished itself somewhere 
else. Aye, "cursed," for here one knows the 
Hun air-ways at first hand, and it hurts worse 
than many things out here to see, as we do oc- 
casionally, a grey floater with the red, white, 
and blue circles, tumble over and over down, 
or plane giddily to a crash that you turn away 
your head not to see. All praise to the R.F.C., 
for doing fine service under the worst condi- 
tions; and requiescant their great boy pilots, 
and may the earth lie lightly on them. And 
one cannot say more for a man out here than 
that last! 

Sed Icetet — iuvat videre locos — one likes to 
see the sites of former doings. And there is 
that lighter side that offers relaxation. For 
instance, one may occasionally go back to [one 
letter deleted]. You walk along the mud- 
covered highway — the White Road that leads 
and led to this battered sector of the Line. A 
chugging and bumping follows you partout, 
the green lorries with their quaint divisional 
signs go by. Lions rampant, bar sinister dom- 
inoes of divers spots, red dumbbells, black tom- 
cats reclining sejant against one another, and 
all that sort of thing. Probably a staff of fif- 



AT THE FRONT 219 

teen officers, installed in thirty rooms, is em- 
ployed to devise these signs of mystic mean- 
ing. 

But, ods-bodikins ! a 'bus is surging down the 
line, and another and another. You remem- 
ber in time to run to the middle of the road, 
for you are on the Continent and keep to the 
right, and hop it — ^in the old familiar side 
swing that you used to know so well — and quite 
naturally climb the winding stair. You 
reached the top and sat down; came a call, 
"Any fares, please !" — a Tommy opposite had 
spoken in jest; you echo unconsciously with a 
broken-off laugh, "A penny all the way!" and 
bowling along the straight road under the pop- 
lars, you are in Blighty again, purring down 
the golden Strand. It passes and leaves you 
to a day-dream, with a bit of a sting and pain. 
God! London Town — once again! But a 
spurt and throw of mud near the road sends a 
bit of shrapnel singing over, and brown-studies 
finish. 

"Ubique means 'Bank, 'Olbom, Bank — 
a penny all the way.' " 

Good luck to you and Hanover. Mail is 
at last coming in, and, crois-moL I am looking 



220 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

for the old post-mark. I will send on when I 
can. I feel that I write abominably now. 
Yours, 

Arthur A. S. 

Elsewhere-in-France 
November 2, 1917 

Dear Mr. Merrill: 

We have been here in billets for several 
days. When we are off duty we stay here, 
safely underground, and sleep, read, or follow 
our "ain" plans. We do turns at the guns, 
several kilometres from here, for twenty-four 
hours, and return here for forty-eight. Of 
course, it's pretty hard work, and one needs 
the rest. 

This town is quite a ruin, though there are 
some houses still standing. Most of the walls 
have part dehout, but present a sorry sight on 
the whole. The streets are still going, cob- 
bled, and very muddy, being mainly used by 
the soldiers, who have to meet a lot of mud. 
In the middle of the town, or not far from it, 
are the remains of what once was one of the 
finest buildings in the Low Countries — the old 
Holies de Draps. The destruction of that is 
an example of the rotten business of this war. 

Our work up at the Line is pretty heavy 




CLOTH HALL, YPRES, AFTER BOMBARDMENT 

The Ruins of the Ancient Cathedral are seen in the background, at the right 



AT THE FRONT 221 

in certain ways. There is a deal of pulling 
and shifting guns, and toting shells about. 
Firing the big guns is done by "shoots," as 
they are called — quite like our old work at the 
traps and Walnut Hill. One receives the or- 
der to lob over a certain number of rounds at 
named targets. It is all indirect laying (viz: 
aiming at unseen targets ) , of course, and cor- 
rections in aiming are sent down by our 'plane 
(each battery has one of its own) by wireless, 
as observed from their undulations in the firm- 
ament. If our 'plane notes a near-hit, the ob- 
server makes his estimate of the error in aim- 
ing, and sends it down; then when a direct hit 
is observed, the 'plane passes us word to turn 
loose pronto, and Fritz forthwith is in diffi- 
culties. It's really extraordinary what the 
'planes can do. They are the very right arm, 
or, to use a better figure, the eyes of the JJhi- 
que corps. The side which possesses the best 
air-service will hold preponderance of power 
with the guns. 

Really, out here there is very much of a 
sameness — and how one becomes lazy! Back 
in the Old Country, in those happy days be- 
fore the white cliiFs sank into Channel grey, 
one went about and did things, and saw things 
— here, rien a voir, rien a faire. Never was 



222 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

truer word said nor patter saw propounded 
than that "variety is the spice of life." Here 
it's a matter of "to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
and to-morrow." 

But the giddy old show will finish — ere long, 
we will hope. And the Front is not so black 
as it is painted — though it is quite as brown, 
with khaki and no end of Flanders mud. Some 
day someone will immortalise and perpetuate 
the memory of "Mud: as seen in Western 
Europe, 1914-19 . . ." 

To relieve the monotony I have books: the 
Bard of Avon, Kipling's verse, Tennyson, 
Longfellow, "Pickwick" (o comme ineffable!) , 
Dan Scrivener's "Canterbury Tales," Pal- 
grave's "Golden Treasury." But what one 
misses are the dear Victorian novelists. I shall 
arrange with some one of the book-folk that 
line — 

''. . . the Road that wanders down 
To Charing Cross in London Town" 

to send me periodically a list of books, in the 
cheap editions. I want "Chuzzlewit," and 
"Dombey," "Nickleby," Thackeray's "Virgin- 
ians" and "Newcomes," and the like. I hope 
I can effect this, but I don't know. 



AT THE FRONT 223 

You will probably have returned from your 
moose-hunting peregrinations when you re- 
ceive this. I envy you your menu. Ours is 
only too replete with hardtack and bully-beef, 
which is commonly issued, "one man, one tin, 
one day." 

I have received (to-day) your letter of Oc- 
tober 2, with the "B.E.F." stamp on it. Mail 
to France takes longer to go through, I sup- 
pose. That is only the second letter I have 
received in two weeks' time overseas. Write 
when you can. Best wishes to all. 
Yours sincerely, 

Arthue. 

Elsewhere-in-France 

November 2, 1917 

Dear Edward: 

The thought of it all — that you are back at 
the dear old place! You certainly are fortu- 
nate, old boy; but such is ordained for some 
mortals by Jove and the deathless gods that 
hold high Olympus. I will tell you of a true 
thing, man: you cannot know what it means 
to one, after a year at this Hun-beating busi- 
ness — ^what that name means; what a shrine 
it makes in a man's heart, of hopes and past 
joys and plans and desires — that which we call 



224 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Alma Mater. And — il riest pas a rire — it 
takes the place of le premier amour, of many 
a want and many a lack; and the knowledge 
that old Johnny H. is behind his sons and 
watching them and expecting them to do well, 
will help a chap mightily to carry on. 

Oh, to toddle in at the gate by Holworthy as 
the bell is whanging away, and the men pour 
out of Sever and Boylston and Widener; to 
sit again to old Kittredge, or Barrett Wendell 
(but he has gone, worse luck!), or any of the 
honoured Old Guard; to speed over to the 
Waldorf or the Onion for a bite or a juicy ten- 
derloin ; in short, the has-been of our mundane 
sojourn, the glad days of young youth, that 
now seem so very far away. But the hope is 
still warm of the coming back! 

I won't bore you with portrayals of the life 
we lead here, for a thinking man thinks of it 
as little as he can, and waits till that later day 
when the Boche shall be hived again in his 
Bochie, and decent folk may go abroad without 
let or hindrance. Here the ensemble is a sort 
of quintessence of — mud, piles of bricks, jag- 
ged earth, mud^ banging motor-lorries, boom- 
ing, and MUD. . . . 

If I were in your shoes I would jettison 
Chem. entirely — ^but you have the liking to 



AT THE FRONT 225 

some extent. "Phil." is excellent, but Pope is 
apt here: "Drink deep, or touch not — ." 
Every Anglo-Saxon should know the story 
of his race, so any Eng. Hist, course is the 
goods. Who gives it ? And have you dropped 
Mod. Langs, entirely? It is to be hoped not. 
I've been able to develop conversational 
French a bit, of course, here. All the Flem- 
ish in this region speak it as a second home- 
tongue, and do well enough with English, too. 
I've not forgotten the lingua sacra, either. I 
have the "^neid" in my bag, among other 
stand-bys. I found Hugo's "Odes et Bal- 
lades" in a bazar at . . . . , when we were there. 
It is wonderful — only less so (and in a differ- 
ent way), than "JLes Miser ahles" Voila le 
coeur et sort de toute Vhumanite! 

[This letter ends abruptly; it is unsigned.] 

Somewhere-in-France 
November Jf., 1917 

Dear Winifred: 

I beg that you will forgive me both my 
execrable pencil and worse paper, the which, 
savin' yom* reverence, is all that I can procure 
at this date. C'est la guerre! 

Did you ever correspond with a cave-man? 
Then (I can hear your 'negative) you are at 



226 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

least hearing from one now. In this part of 
the little world the mode of existence of our 
antediluvian ancestors is highly desirable. Up 
above there are wicked shells and dastardly 
bombs, that make it a bit unpleasant for roam- 
ing about; but here, in my secure wine-cellar, 
which once held some worthy burgher's claret 
and Moselle and Benedictine, with feet of 
bricks and that sort of thing over one's head, 
'tis different. There is a great old straf on 
above there now, but "it shall not come nigh 
thee." And, incidentally, we are doin' a 
'straordin'rily large part of the strafing. And 
come now — ^before we leave the subject — what 
am I offered, a commodious heated apartment, 
with shelves, spring bed a la Louis XV, and 
certain books to while away the time? 

To delve into that limbo of the dear dead 
has-been, I mind me of a bit of a jingle which 
was known when I entered into classic halls : 

*'When Freshmen first we came to Yale — 
Fol de rol, de rol rol rol !" 

and to me there comes the possible emenda- 
tion, along more topical lines: 

When first we came to straf the Hun — 
Fol de rol, etc., 



AT THE FRONT 227 

A "pip-squeak" set us on the run — 
Fol de rol, de plunk- whiz-boom ! 

Not SO bally rotten, what? I'll be rivalin' 
these Kiplin', an' Service, an' Brooke chap- 
pies, before vewy long. Jolly old toppah, this 
Kiplin', weally! 

But to mix jollity with other matters is all 
one can do out here. There's so hanged little 
joy or laughter floatin' about that you have 
to jolly well create it, or languish in 
gloom. . . . 

Best wishes, my friend. 

Yours, 
Arthur. 

'Somerchere-in-Frttnice 
November 5, 1917 

Dear CM. S.: 

De quoi ecrire id am "Front — mcds aui, 
qu'importe? 

A few casualties, day by day: no R.I.P.'s, 
but nearly all Blightys; some gas stretcher 
cases, and a couple of dressing station scratches 
— that is a week's toll on this forsaken sector. 

The poor infantry. To live in wretched shell- 
holes, under shrapnel, H.E., and gas for days 
and weeks — for this push is a tough one, the 
worst of the war. But there is victory in sight 



228 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

if one endure. Back here the sifted platoons 
stop by the roadside, and, sprawled about on 
the brick piles, they get out their gun-wipers 
and massage the rusty Enfields. — (For wip- 
ers read hell-on-earth.*) And they talk of 
the front-of-the-Front, and of the ills and joys 
of that land: the Boche always giving way, 
our shells going over six to their one — and, 
though decidedly fed-up, they carry on! Of 
course, it is the Army tradition always to be 
fed up! You can never rob the Britisher of 
his grouse. The Men that Fought at Minden 
also had that sacred privilege. "Blowed if I 
know wot the bloody war is gettin' to," he says. 
Your Imperial soldier of to-day is becoming 
a very independent chap. There is a general 

* "Wipers" is the British Tommy's pronmiciation of Ypres. 
The comment, "For wipers read hell-on-earth," was evidently 
intended as a hint, which might pass the censor, that the let- 
ter was written from the ruined city, a fact which the writer 
was not at liberty to state more plainly. 

At this time Ypres was under especially savage fire. The 
activity of the British guns had told the Germans that an in- 
fantry attack was impending, and the bombardment of the 
city was intended to prevent the movement of reinforcements 
and supplies to the British front. The famous assault of the 
Canadians that resulted in the capture of Passchendaele Ridge, 
the key position seven miles northeast of Ypres, was launched 
at 6 a. m. on November 6. 

Field Marshal Haig's night report of November 7 reads: 
"During the day the work of organizing our new positions 
at Passchendaele and on the high ground in the neighbour- 
hood of the village continued without interruption from the 
enemy. In spite of the great importance which it is known 
the enemy attached to this commanding locality, no hostile 
reaction has yet followed its capture." 



AT THE FRONT 229 

excrescence on their ideas, which finds origin 
in John Bull and Bottomley's bombast, that 
they are an oppressed lot, rather "wage-slaves" 
(which most of the sons of Adam are — irony 
there for you), the prey of the gentry, they 
orfcer blokes, the squire, and all that sort of 
thing. It is exactly as the omniscient has it. 

"Me that 'ave been what I've been, 
Me that 'ave gone where I've gone, 
Me that 'ave seen what I've seen — 

'Ow can I ever take on 
With awful old England again, 
An' 'ouses both sides of the street, 
An' 'edges two sides of the lane, 
An' the parson an' 'gentry' between. 
An' touchm' my 'at when we meet — 

Me that 'ave been what I've been !" 

But ah, habit, habit! When the humblest one- 
pip subaltern of 'Is Majesty's Forces passes 
by, Thomas A. executes "right- 'and-in-a-cir- 
cular motion to-yer-'at, 'ead-'n-eyes-n^/j^f " for 
three paces before and after. And, of course, 
"sir, sir, sir." 

Is "democracy" coming to Albion? Are 
duke's son and cook's son in reversed places 
going to shake it up in the millennium? I said 
democracy: demos, where demos^canaille, is 
rather well represented everywhere. But Eng- 



230 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

land is the most completely democratic state — 
barring land conditions: surely nowhere can 
one find greater personal freedom than under 
the British Crown. And "they" will call the 
States "democratic" — ^where pacifists are 
caged, where "Spitting Forbidden, Fine $100" 
stares at you in every vehicle and street, while 
England's way tells you: "It is respectfully 
requested — " And for a ne plus ultra exam- 
ple, one need only take the Manhattan night- 
court vs, the primal brutalities, and laisse% 
vivre of a London magistrate's bench, in deal- 
ing with "Lalun." 

Did I ever tell you how I met Eugene 
Parker Chase, '16, and Fred Leighton, '17, 
when I was in London? It all began at the 
American Y. M. C. A. in the Aldwych. I 
had talked for an hour or two of the War and 
sundry with a worker from Johns Hopkins, 
and at the end he mentioned a co-worker — 
"from Dartmouth, by the way." Explana- 
tions in order — ^it developed who he was, and 
of Leighton as well. I was floored for a bit — 
to think of meeting them there ! — and the next 
morning I walked up the steps of No. 47, 
Russell Square, near where Amelia and old 
Sedley used to live, and presently saw Eugene 
in the flesh. At Oxford I had sought for a 



AT THE FRONT 231 

Rhodes list of all the Colleges, not knowing 
to which he had gone, and had failed to find 
any. But here he was, and Leighton, with 
whom I pursued Lessing's Jew-toleration 
propaganda in the northern end of old Dart- 
mouth, and jaw-fested with, in Norton's room 
in Middle Fayerweather. Hardly a change 
could I discern in either. Eugene's accent had 
mellowed a little — ^he'd learnt dictionary and 
eyether^ of course — ^but Leighton was semper 
idem. 

After a chat they returned to work. At one 
o'clock I returned, we three proceeding past 
the war-closed Museum to a nice Italian place 
in Soho, where I had the first good luncheon 
in weeks. It was a real hour of enjoyment for 
me; hearing of men long forgotten, of new ac- 
quaintances, of the new Dartmouth war-work, 
of everything which three quondam Hanover 
men, rendezvous'ed in mighty London, found 
interesting; that Bailey Emery was in some 
naval show or other, that the shining luminary 
Roswell Magill, '16, was doing something else, 
that X had sought fame in the U. S. R. at 
Plattsburg, that so many had gone as "Tack- 
les" in the stalwart flag-waving U. S. N.; and 
Leighton told us, last year having been out of 
Hanover, of what had been done while Eugene 



232 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

scholared it at Magdalen *mong buttery bills 
and dons, and I carried on in the Yard and 
Union, and later, to be sure, with the British 
forces. Leighton had left in May; L. H. and 
other wicked Teutons, being conscientious, had 
then not left college. 'Gene saw his year out 
at the Coll., and after long vacation had de- 
cided not to return for Fall Term (which went 
up at the very time we met) . 

And then of the work in choosing books for 
"Sammies" shortly due — ^what class of htera- 
ture was most widely read among the Can- 
adians? I told them of the pearls of English 
prose done by Ruby M. Ayres, Victoria Cross, 
Guy Boothby and Wilham Le Queux, which 
Thomas largely favoured. So from their work 
in Blighty we left to other topics — and lunch 
hour was soon past. They returned to Rus- 
sell Square and I into the City, but I with 
pleasant afterthoughts. I say, Dartmouth 
does put a sort of brand upon a man, does it 
not? I watched it in Fred's and Eugene's 
methods of thought. 'Gene was losing it a bit 
through Magdalen ; I, perhaps, had lost it more 
than either — yet I knew instinctively that we, 
save for the dubious form (in a Soho "risto- 
ranie"!) could without a word have stood up. 



AT THE FRONT 233 

joined hands, and sung the old Song without 
breaking and in gladness: 

"And the granite of New Hampshire 
In their muscles and their brains." — 

Dartmouth upper classman, Harvard under- 
graduate, and Magdalen scholar — three as di- 
verse as East and West, yet as united as man 
and maid. There you have a wonderful thing, 
my friend. And I think all three felt it, also. 

I knocked against a U. S. R. medico in this 
city of sorrows not long ago, and, asking of 
his corps, was told that the universities were to 
send their quotas from the medical schools as 
units, before very long. I judged him a Mid- 
dle-Westerner, from his dialect. 

You will excuse me while I damn both pen 
and paper, with which I write this, most heart- 
ily — ^but I fancy that Ung had worse imple- 
ments, and I now class as a sort of modernistic 
cave-man. 

Till later — thanking you for bearing with 
me so far, 

Yours, 

Arthue a. S. 

At two o'clock on the morning of Novem- 
ber 6, the building in Ypres where Wainwright 



2S4 A COLLEGE MAN IN KHAKI 

Merrill was billeted was struck and wrecked 
by an enemy shell. He was at once taken from 
the ruins and carried to a dressing station, but 
he died without regaining consciousness. He 
was buried in a small British cemetery in the 
outskirts of Ypres. 

An officer of Wainwright's battery, writing 
from the front to Mr. Merrill, said: "While 
here he always did his work well, and was never 
found wanting. We all considered him rather 
a strange chap, which is quite explained by 
your letter telling about his assumed name. 
He certainly had the nerve and pluck to carry 
it through. When oif duty he always could be 
found reading, not trashy novels, but books 
that only an educated man could read and 
understand, so he was always looked upon as 
not being of the ordinary type of soldier, but 
something above it." 



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